Small riders move fast

Riding on the back of the success of new motorcycle launches, relatively smaller two-wheeler manufacturers, notably LML, TVS Motor Company and Yamaha India, have succeeded in making a dent in the market shares of big players like Hero Honda and Bajaj Auto in the month of January 2003.

What makes everyone happy is that the sales of motorcycles of all makes continued to increase; scooters and mopeds remained in the negative territory, though.

According to figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), in January 2003, LML and TVS Motor Company showed a sales growth of 198.7 per cent and 32.5 per cent, respectively.

Bajaj Auto showed a 19.8-per cent sales growth, selling 75,059 units of motorcycles against the sales in the corresponding period in January 2002. This is significantly lower than its growth of 37 per cent in the 10-month period of April 2002-January 2003.

The leader of the pack, Hero Honda, reported a miserly sales growth of 6.6 per cent. Yamaha, Kinetic Engineering and Royal Enfield Motors are yet to announce sales figures.

Sales galore
TVS sold 61,223 bikes in January 2003 as against 46,187 bikes in the same period last year and its cumulative bike sales between April 2002 and January 2003 were up by almost 72 per cent at 6.01 lakh units, over the corresponding period of year 2002. TVS also reported a 32-per cent rise in scooter sales in January, at 12,947 units, improving its April-January sales to 1.33 lakh units.