Hero Motocorp has quietly increased the prices across its entire product portfolio. While the new prices are yet to be updated on the company’s official website, the hike is effective immediately.
Though the company has not stated a reason for the price hike, we expect rising input costs to be the culprit as usual. The price hike comes at a time the two wheeler industry has been witnessing a prolonged slow down so it could also be viewed as one way of saving the bottom line from slipping further. For most customers, the 1% price hike wouldn’t come as a deal breaker.
After having updated its portfolio with ABS and CBS, like other OEMs, Hero Motocorp is currently working overtime on updating its extensive range of two wheelers to comply with BS-VI standards. It is being reported that the Splendor iSmart, the bread and butter model, has already received BS-VI certification. We expect the updated commuter to be launched in time for this festive season.
Hero recently introduced a slew of 200 cc motorcycles including the XPulse adventure tourer series and fully faired Xtreme 200S. The Xtreme 200S fills the void created by the departing Karizma ZMR (Hero had to discontinue its flagship motorcycle owing to lack of ABS). Given that the Karizma nameplate has a good brand recall, we expect the two wheeler to bring it back on an all-new motorcycle in the foreseeable future, perhaps as early as the Auto Expo 2020.
While good proportion of Hero Motocorp’s product lineup would benefit from fuel injection system in a bid to comply with the upcoming emission norms, we expect the brand’s commuter motorcycles to continue using carburetors in order to keep the prices in check.
The two wheeler industry fell short of sales expectation during last festive season and has been struggling to post growth since then. Earlier this year, most OEMs were facing alarming levels of inventory at dealer level, thereby forcing them to take extraordinary actions to ease the pressure off the dealers.
Nobody seems to know when the market will make a recovery but the industry stakeholders are hopeful that this year’s festive season could bring some hope.
