Nearly after 10 years, Bajaj auto wants to ride scooters again. Why now? the reason is simple, while the overall two wheelers sales were down by 10% in 2007, scooter market is growing in double digits. Before 10 years scooters dominate the two wheeler market in India. For the first time in 1997, motorcycles overtook the scooter sales and there after scooters never soared. The mileage conscious indian customers opted for fuel efficient motorcycles more than scooters. But this seems to be changing now, As India progresses, we believe that scooters, which account for about 25% of the market today, will one day make up for 70% of all two-wheelers in the country,” said Ajinkya Firodia, senior vice-president, sales and marketing, Kinetic Motor. His words have to believed if we look at the following figures
Out of the 6 million two wheeler market around 1 million scooters were sold in 2007. This year alone three new scooters entered the market which started with Bajaj’s kristal, Kinetic SYM flyte and Suzuki Access. For the 2008 market leader Honda has already announced it will introduce a premium scooter by the end of February. Kinetic and TVS have also promised new products in 2008. Obviously, Bajaj wants a pie in this booming market. Infact it has its right to do so, when Bajaj switched the lane to chase Hero Honda, Bajaj had close to 80 per cent share of the scooters and scooterette business in the country. Currently, Honda is the market leader in the scooter segment with more than 50% market share. Honda’s scooter line-up includes dio,eterno and activa. Bajaj made a comeback with 100cc kristal scooter but it failed to make a ripple. This time Bajaj Auto is very serious, it is planning a series of steps, including setting up dedicated showrooms for scooter-buyers on the lines of its ‘Probiking’ showrooms. Probiking is a series of branded, exclusive showrooms for Bajaj Motorcycles that offer an exclusive sales and service experience to prospective buyers. These would display and sell new models in the scooter segment, currently in the pipeline. It is important to recall, Bajaj showcased a 150cc scooter named Blade at the 2006 auto expo. We also reported you Bajaj auto is working on LPG/CNG variant of chetak scooter. Will the second innings work for Bajaj? let’s wait