Six years ago, India's two-wheeler market was dominated by motorcycles, whose share came to 84%. Now, that pie has significantly reduced to 75%, with scooters making a comeback on Indian roads. Most of this growth is being driven by an unlikely segment — women customers.
Lightweight and easy to handle, automatic scooters have been a godsend for women commuters, while they have also found favour with the rest of the family. Unlike motorcycles, which have a macho image, scooters are increasingly being considered unisex.
H S Goindi, president-marketing, TVS Motor, says: "The scooter segment has been outgrowing motorcycles for a while now and it will continue to do so. The growth in scooter sales can largely be attributed to girls taking to biking. The availability of multi-use products that are easy to handle have helped the market grow."
The pace of growth is obvious in the month-on-month sales numbers. In May, the scooter segment grew 34% while motorcycles managed a modest 7%. Scooters have seen their share in the overall two-wheeler pie go up from 12% to 19% in the last six years. Their sales growth routinely outruns motorcycles.
Not surprisingly, no two-wheeler maker wants to let go of this growing market. For instance, Y S Guleria, V-P sales and marketing of Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, says his company is only looking to tweak the scooter to bike ratio from 51:49 to 50:50 following the launch of its big ticket commuter-executive bike Dream Yuga. "We have done very well in scooters and we are hoping that legacy. We are market leaders and there will be more new scooter models from our side going forward," he says.
Given that the company is upping its sales network from 1,500 to 2,000 touch points, the aggression will spill over to both bikes and scooters. Guleria agrees that the scooter boom owes a significant chunk of its sales to women customers. "There has been a definite trend of women taking to scooters, particularly automatic ones that have self start and are easy to use," he says. "But it's also a family vehicle and in design and style have a broader appeal as well."
Bike marketers say one reason why the scooter now has unisex appeal is because of the new technology and design that came with the launch of the Honda Activa. The earlier scooter was a family vehicle too but its technology and weight made it difficult for women to use them. The new-age scooter is perfect not just as a commute option for women, they are functional enough for men too.
Atul Gupta, V-P sales and marketing, Suzuki Motorcycles India, says: "In our case, we have seen the women and men ratio to be 50:50 for our scooter range. Often the primary user is male but the secondary user is often female. Our scooters are multi-use products."
Like HMSI, Suzuki Motorcyles too is looking to shift its scooter to bike ratio only a little with the launch of its commuter-executive motorcycle Hayate from the current 80:20 in favour of scooters to 70:30. Auto analysts say like bikes, the scooter game too will move towards more bells and whistles and value for money technology rather than price sensitivity. HMSI, for instance, is including tubeless tyres for its just launched bike which is priced higher than both the Suzuki Hayate and the Hero Moto Splendor.
