Honda Activa Reaches 1.5 Crore Cumulative Unit Sales

The Activa has been raking in consistent numbers for Honda and this time, it has achieved yet another distinction of selling over 1.5 crore units cumulatively, thereby becoming the first Indian scooter to do so.

Celebrating this feat, Minoru Kato, president and CEO, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, rolled out the landmark 1,50,00,000th Activa from the assembly line of Honda’s scooter-only plant in Gujarat.

Speaking about the achievement, Kato said, “Globally developing markets similar to India, especially Thailand and Indonesia have already shifted to scooterisation. Now, India is getting scooterised like never before. In just 7 years, scooter segment contribution to total industry has doubled from 16% (in 2009-10) to 32% (in 2016-17). And leading this trend is Activa which single-handedly re-activated the declining scooter segment way back in 2001 and became the no.1 selling two-wheeler both in India and the World. Honda believes that there is huge future potential for scooterisation, more so in tier-II and tier-III towns. The trust of Indian families has already made Activa the first scooter in history of Indian two-wheeler industry to cross 1.5 crore customers landmark.”

The Activa was launched in 2001 and sold 55,000 units that year. Three years later, Honda sold five lakh cumulative units, thereby becoming the leader in the automatic scooter segment. By 2012-13, Activa’s annual sales had crossed the 10 lakh mark but was still tailing the largest selling two-wheeler in the country (a motorcycle at that time), by a considerable difference of 8.73 lakh units.

In the next four years, Activa’s sales more than doubled from 12.05 lakh units in FY’ 2012-13 to 27.59 lakh units in FY’ 2016-17. In that financial year, Activa overtook all motorcycles and became the best-selling two-wheeler, leading by 2.09 lakh units over its nearest rival.

After Activa’s debut, it took eleven years to breach the 50 lakh sales milestone but three years after that, in July 2015, the cumulative sales rocketed to over 1 crore units. One-and-a-half-years later, another sales tally of 50 lakh units was added, thus making the Activa India’s and the world’s best selling two-wheeler.

Throwing light upon the reason of the success of the Activa, Yadvinder Singh Guleria, senior vice-president, sales and marketing, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India commented, “The Activa’s phenomenal success and market leadership is in its continuous evolution ahead of times. In 2001, Activa was launched with CLIC mechanism, tyres with patented tuff-up tube, full-metal body powered by the automatic 102cc engine. In 2009, it became industry’s first scooter to come with Combi-Brake System with Equalizer (nearly a decade before CBS is set to be mandatory in two-wheelers by 2019), a bigger and more powerful 110cc engine, convenience of tubeless tyres and completely new design. By 2013, the Activa’s heart got powered by the Honda Eco Technology (HET) which took its mileage in the league of commuter motorcycles. In 2015, the third-generation Activa 3G became more stylish. 2017 saw the birth of more stylish BS-IV and AHO Activa 4G with convenient mobile charging port. Backed by increasing customer demand cutting across all ages, genders and geographies, we are confident that Activa will continue to grow as the No. 1 choice of India.”

Update: Honda reveals the new Activa 5g in Auto Expo 2018