Bajaj Auto scores over Chinese, Japanese bikes
While domestic two-wheeler firm, Bajaj Auto has been facing the brunt of intense competition from the foreign brands, the story seems to be the reverse in emerging markets.
The leading motorcycles such as Pulsar and Boxer from Bajaj have emerged as strong winners in several countries and have made the market tough and challenging for Japanese and Chinese brands.
“Wherever we are present, in overseas markets, we are fighting with Japanese and Chinese brands. It is heartening to see the success of our brand strategy in those markets. Pulsar is the market leader in various markets, including Peru, Columbia and in some of the South American countries,” K Srinivas, president – motorcycles, Bajaj Auto told Financial Chronicle.
“Our Boxer motorcycle is the market leader in Nigeria, where we entered six to seven years ago and it was strongly dominated by Chinese brands. Interestingly, Boxer is the top selling model despite being costlier by about 30 per cent than other competing brands. While we see a Pulsar mania in Latin American markets, it is Boxer mania in countries such as Nigeria in the Africa. It is the brand that pulls the customers in all these markets,” he added.
Even tough, Boxer is not seeing big sales in the domestic market, it is the largest selling brand in Africa. A new 150cc version of it, the BM-150 has been well received and presents good growth prospects. In Philippines, Boxer BM-150 and the Pulsar 135 were launched last year and were well received, with the latter helping Bajaj Auto to gain 34 per cent market share in the sports segment.
In Latin America, where Bajaj Auto sells 20 per cent of its total motorcycle exports, the business has grown by 43 per cent in FY12 over the previous year. Company has seen increase in market share with Pulsar Brand doing exceptionally well. Pulsar 135 ranks among the top selling motorcycle models in various Latin American markets.
Bajaj, the largest exporter of motorcycles from India, has been working with global marketing strategist Jack Trout on brand positioning and the success of its motorcycle brands in some global markets are the result of his association, pointed out Srinivas.
The company is exporting to about 35 countries.
“There is a lot of headroom to grow as we have addressed only 36 per cent (nine million units) of the overall addressable market of 25 million outside India,” said Srinivas.
“Since the developed markets like the United States and Europe have altogether different product and technology requirements as compared to emerging markets, they get naturally excluded as target markets for the Indian players. Accordingly, a large majority of two-wheelers exports from India are to developing markets like South Asia, Africa and Latin America. While the developing markets are quite large in terms of volume potential, their appeal from a profitability perspective is somewhat mixed,” an Icra report pointed out.
