The month of November 2019 witnessed a slight decline in two-wheeler sales even though the market had done positively in October 2019, thanks to many attractive offers during the festive season. Among the industry leaders, only Suzuki Motorcycle India was able to report a growth in the previous month.
Taking into account the top six best-performing brands, the Indian two-wheeler market hit an overall sales figure of 15,17,644 units in November 2019, compared to 18,74,614 units in November 2018; a drop of 19 per cent.
A large portion of the sales slump is a direct result of companies desperately trying to update their products to the new BS6 emission norms, that are effective from the start of April 2020. Brands are currently undergoing a transition phase; clearing all the BS4 inventory for the new BS6 range.
Hero MotoCorp, the largest two-wheeler manufacturer in the country, remained in the top position with a sales figure of 5,16,775 units in November 2019 despite facing a decline of around 15% in comparison to 6,10,252 units in the same month, last year. Out of this, domestic sales fell from 6,01,045 units to 5,05,994 units.
Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India is the most successful foreign-origin two-wheeler brand in India. The Japanese motorcycle company has a strong portfolio of scooters that helped return a total sales figure of 3,96,366 units in November 2019 even though it was much lesser than the same time, last year (4,18,362 units). Domestic sales went down by 5 per cent and hit 3,73,250 units.
Bajaj Auto faced a domestic-sales decline of 11.5 per cent from its performance in the same month last year — 2,34,818 units to 2,07,775 units in November 2019. However, a growth of 17 per cent in exports helped the company get an overall sales figure of 4,03,223 units (just 0.9 per cent down from November 2018)
TVS Motor Company has begun rolling out its BS6 product range, starting with the Apache RTR 160 4V and 200 4V. In November 2019, the company sold 2,66,582 units overall compared to 3,19,965 units in the same month, last year. Domestic sales came down to 1.91.222 units; a slump of 26.52 per cent.
Suzuki Motorcycle India, as mentioned before, ended up being the only brand that witnessed positive results for the month of November 2019. The Japanese-origin brand reported a domestic sales of 60,855 units; 23 per cent up from 53,058 units in November 2018. Overall, the company sold 69,755 units, which is a 23.39 per cent increase.
Royal Enfield faced a 10 per cent drop in domestic sales in November 2019, going down from 65,026 units in November 2018 to 58,292 units. Overall, the Chennai-based motorcycle manufacturer could sell only 60,411 units last month, compared to 65,744 units in the same month, last year.
