While the industry is going through a tough phase, premium bikes maker Triumph Motorcycle India said it expects a sales growth of 25-30 per cent from what it sold last year, led by new launches with aggressive pricing and more BS-VI options than competitors.

The company sold around 800 units last year and this year targets around 1,000 units, Shoeb Farooq, Business Head, Triumph Motorcycle India, told BusinessLine . The company follows a July-June financial year.

"For the last three months, more or less, we are at last year’s level in terms of retail volumes. The reason why we are there is perhaps because of the product and price strategy...we have now 13 products in BS-VI in India and we are ahead of the curve within the premium bike segment,” he told BusinessLine in an interview over telephone.

Triumph is one of the first ones to launch BS-VI right from January-February, before the deadline of March 31 for BS-IV products, and even through the lockdowns the company launched a couple of interesting and awaited products, Farooq said.

"We know there is degrowth in the industry, but we want to push as many products as possible to gain market share and that is exactly what we have been able to achieve in the last two-three months," he said.

Focus on new products

The company launched its tourer model, the all-new Rocket 3 GT power cruiser in India priced at ₹18.40 lakh (ex-showroom), on September 10. It is priced ₹40,000 higher than the regular Rocket 3 motorcycle.

Asked about ‘Make in India’ plans, Farooq said the company right now would continue assembling completeley knocked down (CKD) products at its Manesar facility. Triumph India imports most of the CKDs and completely built units (CBUs) from the Thailand facility of the British superbike maker.

"Going forward, the non-equity partnership between Bajaj Auto and Triumph will start delivering products (from next two years) and that will help towards Atmanirbhar efforts. But right now, the focus is more on how to grow numbers in the next one-and-a-half years, where we are focussing on new products," he said.

He said at this point in time, product research and development is going on with the Bajaj partnership and work is progressing well. The partnership plans to launch its first product in 2022.

This venture will help Triumph enter products at sub ₹2 lakh and a range of bikes under a new engine platform of 200cc to 750cc engines.

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