Suzuki Hayabusa sales is going strong with a 3-month waiting period

The Rs 2 lakh price-cut is one of the major reasons for this surge in demand

The Suzuki Hayabusa has been one of the better selling superbikes in the country. The reason has much to do with a particular Bollywood movie that came at a time when the country was waking up to the concept of superbikes and the Hayabusa became the definition of superbike for the Indian masses. Of course, the cult status associated with being the fastest bike in the world was another draw.

Suzuki brought the bike to India as a CBU and was available for Rs 15.95 lakhs (ex-Delhi). This March, Suzuki started local assembly of the Hayabusa at its Gurgaon factory which lead to a price cut of Rs 2.5 lakhs and a new retail price of Rs 13.88 lakh (ex-Delhi). This move has helped push sales further.

The Hayabusa is being brought to India as a Completely Knocked Down Kit (CKD) and being assembled at a separate assembly line at the Suzuki motorcycles factory. The bikes are assembled by a team of technicians who have been specially trained by Japanese engineers. In a chat with Mr Kenji Hirozawa, VP of Strategic Planning, SIMPL; he mentioned “We are ensuring high levels of quality with the same tests for fit and finish as we do in Japan. Other bikes also have similar quality levels and we are exporting them to other countries as well. For example, we are exporting the Gixxer 150 to our home country Japan and that should give you a fair idea of the quality of our bikes.”

Due to the steady growth in sales, official sources say there is a three-month waiting period for the Hayabusa in India. The company says it is currently working on reducing this period without compromising the amount of time given to assemble a bike which may lead to a drop in quality. Currently, they are assembling one Hayabusa a day. To improve this, they will be increasing the number of technicians working on the bike as well as expanding the length of the assembly line during the annual maintenance shutdown in December. This move should allow them to assemble three bikes every two days which would equate to 30-32 units in 24 working days.

It is interesting to note that the recent demonetization phase has not affected big-bike sales as much as the smaller capacity bikes. In fact in some cases, superbike sales have increased.