‘More and more people want to own a Harley’

Harley Davidson owners from around the country converged on the picturesque outskirts of Kochi recently for the 4th edition of the Southern Harley Owners Group (HOG) Rally. Auto Focus caught up with Pallavi Singh, Marketing Director for the fabled American motorcycle maker’s India division on the sidelines of the rally. We discussed the company’s ambitions for the Indian market, elusive female riders, the Street series and more.

Tell us about the evolution of HOG culture and the rallies in India...

Harley Davidson is a community. If there’s no HOG, then I don’t really see what a rider is going to do with their motorcycle. We’re giving people a reason to ride. Some of these people are very busy, they’re professionals who don’t have the time to organise these destination rides. So, we do that for them. Each dealership has their own chapter, which has brought a lot of people together.

The first rally was the Western HOG Rally which had 25-odd people attending. Then we came up with the four big zonal rallies, and then came the fifth one which is the India HOG Rally in Goa. So from 20-25, it went up to 200-300 and now we have over a 1000 people.

The demographic of Harley owners tends to be skewed heavily towards older males. Is Harley interested in attracting more young riders and female riders to the brand?

Of course, with the whole idea of bigger motorcycles, our market is still very male dominated. The ladies of Harley have their own group and patches and we see that demographic growing a lot, especially with the launch of the Street 750.

The dealers do a lot of garage parties where they show off the merchandise and tell them how to pick up a bigger bike.

This helps new people come into the brand. So we have avenues for people who are new to the brand or feel intimidated by it to come and get comfortable with the motorcycles. It is difficult to tap mass, which we may not even want. But we are getting closer to the critical mass we want.

How important is the Indian market to Harley Davidson?

It is critical. If you look at the Street 750, that’s the product that’s really selling in India right now. And it came into existence only because the company started to think we need to be in India. And its not just about India, it’s about the Asia Pacific. Our sales volume and market share in Asia Pacific is growing because more and more people here want to own a Harley. Australia and Japan have been there for a long time. But with India and China there’s huge potential for growth.

Are there any plans to expand into tier II cities?

We’re launching three more dealers by the end of the year in Guwahati, Calicut and Nagpur. When we launched in 2009, we had this concept called the Founders Ride. Back then, before the dealerships came in, there were already a few people who had Harleys. And it’s because of them that people want to ride in those places today. In smaller cities, the culture of owning premium products isn’t there yet. But these products tend to sell a lot in such markets because aspiration is very high.

The Street 750 and 500 are Harley’s first entirely new offerings in a long time. How significant has their arrival been and are there any plans to bring the Street 500 to India?

With the Street 750, making a bike with that kind of displacement – which is different from a typical Harley – happened because there was customer demand. The 750 was something they really wanted from a displacement perspective. If there is a need [for a 500] in future, of course, we will bring it to India. But right now we’re not thinking about it. The 750 has huge potential, which we want to tap before introducing another product.

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