Bajaj Auto Limited has reported market share to the extent of 20.06% at the end of September 2018, the highest since a 20.05% market share in domestic motorcycle market reported at the end of October 2014. This outstanding growth can be attributed to the price drop in two key high volume models – CT100 and Platina.
Bajaj Auto had long been targeting a 20% market share and had launched many produced and embarked on a host of marketing strategies along with sales promotion plans to speed up this growth.
In the month of September 2018, the company recorded 5.02 lakh vehicle sales while bike sales along increased 17% to 5.3 lakh units. Total domestic sales stood at 3.11 lakh units, a growth of 11% as compared to 2.81 lakh units sold in September 2017. Three wheeler sales stood at 71,070 units, up 20% as compared to sales in the same month of the previous year.
Bajaj Auto also hiked prices of all three of its important motorcycle lineups – Pulsar, Avenger and Dominar. This price hike was the result on a new Supreme Court order on two wheels with regard to third party insurance upto 5 years. This has caused an increase in prices by at least Rs 3,000 starting from 1st September 2018.
Rakesh Sharma, Chief Commercial Officer at Bajaj Auto has commented on this price hike across some models which have been balanced by the company adding variants which are cheaper while this combination balances growth and profitability.
Still Bajaj Auto has not been able to challenge the dominance of Hero MotoCorp which leads the segment with 58.5% market share. In FY18, Bajaj sold 9.5 lakh units as against 18.8 lakh units sold by Hero MotoCorp.
