Who did what on Sales Charts in December- A Detailed Analysis

Its a new calender year and a whole year passed, it was a good one for the two-wheeler industry. The year witnessed some big changes, sales reports of December indicates that it's the time when new players are getting momentum in the Indian market. The top three players – Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor Co – have lost market share in recent months to relatively new players, and surprisingly the market share that Yamaha and Honda got is due to their scooters. The Indian two-wheeler market that shifted from scooters to bikes, a decade ago is again shifting to scooter but this time the change is partial.

World's biggest two-wheeler manufacturer by volume Hero MotoCorp has faced biggest lost in terms of the market share followed by TVS while Bajaj’s market share loss is marginal. All these companies lost share to new entrants like Honda Motor and Scooters India (HMSI) and Suzuki Motorcycle India. Hero MotoCorp has lost 3% of its market share during April to December over a year ago period, followed by TVS’ loss at 1.1 percent and Bajaj’s 0.6 percent.

Honda two-wheelers played a major role in this change, as they gained maximum market share in past nine-months of fiscal 2012-13. Market share loss for leaders has happened due to various factors: aggressive new launches in both scooters and motorcycles by the new players, decline in sales of the Hero Splendor for a few months when brand transition was happening and an overall slowdown in the two wheeler market. The things get worsen for the market leaders in the slow month of the December, when market always shows a stiff slowdown after festive season. Hero MotoCorp reported dispatch of 5,41,615 units last month, a slight increase over 540,276 units it had dispatched to dealers in December last year, the reason was the aggressive marketing lucrative offers on its bikes.

While, Bajaj reported the highest ever motorcycle dispatches in December at 298,350 units (263,699 units), a growth of 13 percent. The dispatch numbers of Hero and Bajaj, which together account for more than half the two-wheeler market, do not portray a slowdown in December. But, these companies dispatched that much units to dealers and both the companies have a huge dealership network throughout the country.

TVS Motor, the third biggest player in the market, did not see growth even in dispatches to dealers; its dispatches fell to 151,735 units against 167,905 units in December 2011. TVS said that though overall dispatches were down year on year, motorcycle dispatches grew by 6 percent to 60,210 units (56,662 units). Its scooter sales suffered the most, at 30,398 units (44,804 units). The reason is very clear, TVS, which was market leader in scooter segment couple of years ago, don't have that hold on increasing scooter market at the moment.

Hero, Suzuki bikes India,Yamaha India and Piaggio India were the companies, which launched new scooters last year and these new scooters are doing well in the market and has got a good acceptance and ate the market share of TVS and Mahindra Two-wheelers.

Yamaha India also reported a 29.10 per cent rise in its total sales in December at 44,976 units. The company had sold 34,839 units in the same month the previous year. In the domestic market, the company's sales stood at 33,290 units as against 26,567 units in the same month in 2010, up 25.33 per cent. Yamaha Ray scooter, launched in September, has been a big success as the model has already gained almost 4% market share since its launch.