As the December sales went down, the two-wheeler maker Bajaj Auto may experience a jagged ride. Due to the slowdown in the sales, the competitors pushed it to the fourth position.Till October 2008, Bajaj was in the second position next to Hero Honda, the market leader. Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan’s Honda Motor has made the Bajaj to move to third position. Now, TVS motors hold the third place.
Bajaj Auto slithered in domestic sales after trailing the pinnacle to Hero Honda in the year 2001. For decades, Bajaj was the definite leader of the harmonized market and in the past few months it is going down. In the last month it sold only 62,043 units. The slithering percentage is of 55 from December 2007.In December, Hero Honda made 2.09 lakh units of sales and HMSI achieved a growth of 29% to 87,164 units. And TVS Motors sold 72,355 units and holding the third place in the market.For the past few months, the market share of Bajaj got reduced as the motorcycle sales lingered at 43 lakh units in the first nine months of the fiscal.
During the time, Bajaj sales plunged 22% to 10.35 lakh units while the competitors maintained their market value. In the month of September, there was 3% decrease in the sales in the domestic market.In October the sales went down by 50% and in November it went down by 53%. Further, the company has streamlined the inventories with dealers and has decreased the dispatches from the factory, said the company officials. To salvage the losses, the company has planned to introduce six new models this year. HMSI and Hero Honda are based on Japanese firm Honda holds 26% stake and now decree the Indian market with more than two thirds of the overall sales in the two-wheeler.