After muted sales, the motorcycle segment is witnessing a smart recovery with double-digit growth aided by a revival of demand in the entry-bike segment in rural sales due to good monsoon.

Though the bike segment started the fiscal with a moderate growth of 3.4 per cent at 3.05 million units during the first quarter, volumes grew in double digit in July and August – an increase of 17 per cent (at about 1.05 million units) and 13 per cent (at about 1.14 million units), respectively.

Though higher CC categories (125cc and above) were recording decent growth, the entry segment (100-110cc) was showing only moderate growth.

However, good monsoon has led to growth in entry bike volumes over the past three months (July-September).

“Rural motorcycle buying is linked to monsoon and crop patterns. Since monsoon has so far been better when compared with last two years and that is contributing to higher sales,” said YS Guleria, Senior Vice- President, Sales and Marketing, Honda Motorcycle & Scooters India (HMSI).

The entry bike segment (100-110cc) accounts for about 60 per cent of the motorcycle market.

HMSI aims to achieve double-digit growth in the motorcycle segment till October.

During the April-August period, the entry segment registered an increase of about nine per cent at about 3.08 million units, which was 58 per cent of the total bike volumes.

“During April-May 2017, two-wheeler volumes grew as a result of inventory restocking by dealers of most OEMs, while implementation of GST (from July 2017) had a moderating impact on June wholesale as dealers de-stocked. However, it has revived during July-August 2017, said Subrata Ray, Senior Group Vice-President, ICRA.

With the festival season coming up and positive overall growth sentiments, the growth is expected to be healthy in the near term.

ICRA expects domestic two-wheeler volumes to grow by 8-10 per cent during FY2018 as demand recovers from both rural and urban households.

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