The Week India – July 14, 2019

60 THE WEEK • JULY 14, 2019

BUSINESS

TWO-WHEELERS

H

arder, better, faster,

stronger. Nope, we are not

sampling Kanye West’s hit

pop auto-tune. It just about

encapsulates the yearnings of young

bike lovers in India. They want more

power and better performance, and

it has triggered a paradigm shift in

India’s two-wheeler market, which is

the largest in the world.

“There are two types of bike buyers

in India,” said Ravinder Singh, senior

vice president (strategy and plan-

ning), Yamaha Motor India. “The

innovators, the unconventional

breed of riders who want something

different, and then there are the ones

who go with the crowd, who want a

bike to commute. We have focussed

on the innovators, and we have seen

that every time we do something

stylish and exciting, they accept it

readily.”

And their numbers have crossed

the tipping point. Last year, premium

motorcycles (any bike priced over 01

lakh, or has an engine above 150cc)

sales in India crossed the one million

mark for the first time. It is a segment

that has been growing much faster

than the overall two-wheeler market.

For instance, while total bike sales

in the country last year grew by just

4.8 per cent, premium bike sales

soared by 20 per cent. “The premium

segment is definitely poised to grow

in the next two to three years,” said

Rajeev Singh, partner and automo-

tive leader at the consultancy firm

Deloitte.

Interestingly, this growth comes

even as the automobile industry

bears the brunt of the overall slow-

down of the economy, with a decline

in sales across all categories. But in

IN

THE

FAST

LANE

Premium bikes’

popularity beats not

just commuter bikes

but also the sluggish

economy

BY K. SUNIL THOMAS