The Indian car giant Mahindra&Mahindra is already on the verge of entering into the two wheeler market and is exploring the aspirations to source Chinese parts. The President of M&M’s two wheeler segment said the talks with the Chinese vendors have already begun, since China is the second largest manufacturer after India.
As of now, M&M has three 125cc scooters – two power scooters called Mahindra Rodeo and Duro, along with Mahindra Flyte. Another motorcycle will be launched next year. All these scooters are in the price range of Rs38300 – Rs41300, striking similarity with Hero Honda Pleasure and TVS Scooty Pep, but lesser than Honda Activa by 5-6 percent and by 8-12% than Suzuki Access. The engine is larger by 12-18%.
M&M believes that the price is strategic and sustainable, even if the Chinese sourcing is done for the two wheelers. The fate about the current models of Mahindra – Nova, Kine, and 4S – is undecided. M&M took over Kinetic Motors in 2008 after Kinetic launched its Flyte a 125-cc. M&M intends to secure its identity as an end-to-end player and the Kinetic models would feed the market on need. The Rodeo is targeted at the youth, Duro is ideal for family ride and Flyte is pro-feminine.
The company has secured a good sale stint – in just 40 days of the launch, 7000 units have been sold on a monthly average. The company’s production capacity is 500000 two-wheelers and the dealer number is 325 (to be increased to 375 by the end of this year). With the take over of Kinetic, some 200 dealers of Kinetic came to the fold of M&M and the rest are dealers of tractors and utility vehicles. The net growth of two wheeler market is around 15% this financial year of which Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India dominated with 53% in scooter segment followed by TVS (21) & Hero Honda(14%) and Suzuki (8%).