Battling low sales, Royal Enfield today announced launch of their cheapest motorcycles, and new service schedule – both aimed at boosting sales. Speaking about their new entry-level motorcycles, 350 X and the ES 350 X are priced from Rs 1.12 lakhs. These new RE motorcycles are cheaper by about Rs 10,000, when compared to the current cheapest RE bikes.
Apart from launching these cheaper version of Bullet 350, Royal Enfield has also announced change in service intervals. In a release shared with media, Royal Enfield states that “Royal Enfield announced the launch of a new initiative on improving Cost of Ownership”.
Under this new initiative, all Royal Enfield motorcycles in the range of Bullet, Classic and Thunderbird will have significantly lower cost of ownership, as compared to what is prevalent today.
Royal Enfield says, “Across all its authorised service centers, the company will commence the use of a new set of processes and technology, coupled with a new mix of semi-synthetic oil, for servicing. These initiatives will now increase the service interval from being 3 months / 3000 kms to 6 months / 5000 kms.
The oil change interval also increases to 12 months or 10,000 kms, as opposed to the earlier 6 months or 5000 kms. This will therefore, bring down the overall service interventions required in a year and will bring down the cost of service by an average of 40% over a period of 3 years, thereby significantly improving cost of ownership for the customer.”
This new service improvement initiative will be applicable to all current Unit Construction Engine engine motorcycles models under the unit construction engine platform – the Bullet, Classic and the Thunderbird.
Royal Enfield says that, “Launching along with the new Bullet range of motorcycles, is another significant step towards customer satisfaction.” One could question why did the company not launch such an initiative earlier. Instead the announcement comes at a time when the company is regularly posting double digit decline in motorcycle sales in the backdrop of an industry slowdown.
Royal Enfield has the most widespread sales and service network among premium brands in the country – close to 930 existing dealer touchpoints in India alone, more than 8800 service bays, and more than 900 authorised service workshops. Adding to this extensive network, Royal Enfield announced the launch of 250 new dealer touch-points across tier II and III cities and towns. To be operational from today, the new Royal Enfield Studio Stores will have the same retail identity as existing dealerships across cities, and will have the entire portfolio of motorcycles, in addition to service and spares.