Slowdown in sales of car and motorcycles has not been able to dent the scooter segment. And betting big on the growing demand for gearless scooters, almost all major two-wheeler companies are lining up new launches and planning capacity increases across respective manufacturing facilities.
With an industry size of around 2.5 lakh units a month, the scooter market, which is dominated by gearless ones (98 per cent market share), is expected to grow at around 35 per cent nationally, which is around 23 per cent in the east, this year. Scooter models command a 2-4 months of waiting in selective markets.
Scooters sales in the domestic market grew 21 per cent in the first six months of the fiscal even as motorcycles declined 0.79 per cent. A growing urban infrastructure and a preference for gearless scooters among women have contributed to rising sales.
“We had invested around Rs 500 crore in R&D and have plans to launch two new models of gearless scooters in the 150 cc and 100 cc segment in 2013-14,” Amarendra Kumar Verma, zonal manager (East), Mahindra Two Wheelers told The Bengal Post.
At present, the company manufactures scooters from its Pitampur plant in Indore, where it is utilising 25 per cent of its capacity. Mahindra has four scooter models Rodeo, Duro, Flyte and Kine. All the models runs with a 125cc engine, while Kine is a 85cc, gearless scooter.
“The Mahindra Rodeo targets young vibrant women, Duro in a family scooter, which targets the 35-40 age bracket and the Kine targets the first time user,” said Verma.
"We are adding 10,000 scooters to take our monthly capacity to 40,000 by March next year. We have seen consistent expansion in the past two years where demand has simply outstripped out capacities," said Atul Gupta, marketing head, Suzuki Motorcycle.
Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India is said to be working on plans to develop high-power scooters.
"Even as bike sales have slowed, scooters are generating a huge latent demand to keep our expansion plans intact,” said Anil Dua, senior vice-president (marketing & sales) Hero MotoCorp (HMCL). The company has planned to hike its monthly production to over 60,000 units from 40,000 units at its Gurgaon plant.
Two-wheeler maker India Yamaha Motor, which is betting big on its new gearless scooter Yamaha Ray, has invested Rs 750 crore to expand its installed capacity to 600,000 two-wheelers annually. The new scooter is manufactured at Surajpur plant in Uttar Pradesh.
