Piaggio to spread the Aprilia word across India

Piaggio has had an interesting association with India over the decades thanks to the Vespa brand. Local two-wheeler allies such as Bajaj Auto and LML were part of this journey in different phases till the Italian automaker decided to reboot its priorities.

In came Piaggio Vehicles where the light three-wheeled cargo business made a strong connect with the market. Recent times, the company has decided to spread its wings in the two-wheeler space where the Vespa returned in a premium avatar. Sales were little to write home about and now it is the turn of the Aprilia brand to take the story to the next level.

“We have a good balance in terms of brands. With three-wheelers, we have our existing stable business, which gives us the freedom to be a bit more daring with the other part of our portfolio in two-wheelers,” says Stefano Pelle, Managing Director.

Since Piaggio’s three-wheelers represent a steady and profitable business, the company believes it can afford to experiment in the two-wheeler space with unique and exciting products. This is where Aprilia and Vespa will have their work cut out in the world’s largest, yet most competitive, two-wheeler market.

The Aprilia SR150 sports scooter was launched in mid-2016 and was joined more recently by its sibling, SR150 Race, at a launch in Mumbai. As Pelle explains, the idea is to give an even sportier connotation to the Aprilia with another product, “which is the same and yet not the same”.

“It is peppy and something new,” he adds. “We will need to see how it is accepted. We also have some interesting ideas about some kits that can personalise the product to make it faster and these should be out soon too.”

The Piaggio chief is quite pleased with the response to the SR150 even though these are early days yet. He admits that the company did not quite expect this “kind of curiosity and acceptance” for a crossover. “After all, when you start a new category, you have no idea if it will work. People saw something new in the market and things began to fall in place,” he recalls.

The first few months were “difficult in a positive way” in the sense that Piaggio could not cope with initial orders before demonetisation happened and the two-wheeler industry went for a tailspin. In a way, this was helpful since things are stable now with the SR150 deliveries happening in less than 30 days instead of the earlier timeframe of 60.

The customer profile is on expected lines (young men in the 18-30 age group). The bigger task on hand is to expand the network and make the brand more accessible. “We are only present in a few towns and must grow our network. We need to be in the top 20-30 high selling cities, which is not the case today before moving further into smaller towns,” says Pelle. In this backdrop, it is only logical that the Aprilia user portfolio in India comprises affluent customers who read about the brand online and are, hence, more familiar with it.

It is only natural, therefore, that Aprilia is still not very well known in the subcontinent. “We need to have more excitement for a product like this and build brand recall in a bid way,”says Pelle. “The way forward is to launch variants every few months and keep the story going.”

The other reality to contend with is that the brand is in a niche premium space and not mass, which is the norm in the Indian two-wheeler landscape. “Despite that, we do think it is value for money and, therefore, affordable in that context. To that extent, it does not have to be limited to those few cities it is present in now,” he reasons.

Customer feedback has also been encouraging so far and this is critical given that the SR150 is a completely new crossover that was made and localised for India. “There could have been some teething problems but this was not the case, which only means that our engineers have done a good job,” says Pelle.

Despite the positive feedback, there are still some areas of improvement that the company is working on. For instance, some customers said the suspension was a little hard, which “we knew well since it is a sporty kind of bike”. Yet, to ensure that option for the end user, Piaggio is introducing an adjustable spring, which can give users the kind of ride they want.

Pelle also reiterates that a lot of attention will be paid to Vespa and ensure that it is on track with some refreshes. The 70th year anniversary edition was launched some months ago though the bigger challenge is to grow the numbers and give customers a good reason to opt for a premium brand like Vespa.

Despite the reality of not being in the numbers game, Pelle is not deterred. “From my point of view, it does not make sense to have a ‘me too’ in a market that is extremely competitive,” explains Pelle. “We are not that kind of two-wheeler producer and would rather make things that are nice and beautiful and unique with a different frame of mind.”

The Baramati plant near Pune has also begun to ship out scooters. Vespa exports have kicked off and the brand is scheduled to debut in Sri Lanka soon. The SR150 was launched in Nepal recently. “There are other countries lined up and these are mostly emerging markets. Going forward, maybe the scooter produced here could even be exported back to Europe. Who knows?” says Pelle.

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