Honda Pips TVS: Becomes Third Largest Two-Wheeler Company In India

Honda has been on a roll as could be made out from its monthly sales reports. Month on month, quarter on quarter Honda has been inching higher onto the sales ladder, penetrating deep into the Indian market. Very recently we had published that in the last month’s (March 2012) sales, Honda had even sold more than Bajaj, the second largest manufacturer in India.

According to the figures revealed by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturer (SIAM), the corresponding rankings in terms of overall sales along with respective figures for the top 4 manufacturers of financial year 2012 are:

1.Hero Moto Corp : 60,69,280 units
2.Bajaj Auto : 25,66,757 units
3.Honda (HMSI) : 19,96,320 units
4.TVS Motor: 18,95,500 units

Hero Moto Corp is at a clear lead at the apex position. It is more than double the second largest manufacturer, Pune based Bajaj Auto. At present Bajaj is comfortably ahead of the new third largest seller in India, Honda, but with the mass seller like Yuga 110cc lined up for launch pretty soon, things might feel heated for them as well.

Down at fourth position now, things are a little worrying for TVS Motor as there doesn’t seem to have any big game changing product visible from their side in the near future. TVS has to buckle up fast else other smaller manufacturers like Yamaha and Suzuki are also catching up fast. Difference between Honda and TVS was 100,820 units.

The overall two wheeler market grew in India by 14.16 percent to 1,34,35,769 units this fiscal as compared to last year’s figures of 1,17,68,910 units. For HMSI this gain was for both its motorcycles as well as scooters. Out of the total 19,96,320 units, scooters formed the maximum chunk at 12,24,599 units registering an impeccable growth of 37.08 percent. This simply means that people are willing to wait (sometimes even for months) for a Honda product. The remaining part ie 7,71,721 units were the motorcycle sales which also were 17.28 percent higher for the company. After Yuga, we expect this figure to go up.
For TVS, figures do not make such a good read. While scooter sales at 4,96,896 did increase by 14.13 percent, motorcycle sales skidded by 1.65 percent and stood at 6,21,738 units. The major chunk of sales were from the moped segment which rose 11.39 percent to 7,76,866 units.

For the next fiscal, SIAM has projected a growth of 11-13 percent for the two wheeler industry.