Competition, better watch out: Honda plans more Gearless Scooters for the Indian Scooter Market!

2011 Honda Activa Scooter

It’s been a decade since Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honda Motor Co, set shop in India, and turned around what many analysts had termed as a segment that was, for all, good purposes dead. We’re talking about the Indian scooter market, which even Bajaj Auto, India’s most prolific scooter maker ever, had abandoned for the more lucrative and high selling, four stroke motorcycles as the bottom of the scooter market in India was said to have collapsed.

In a move that was not just audacious at that time and age but also a defining moment in Indian scooter history, Honda launched the ungeared Honda Activa, a 102cc four stroke scooter, that defied all analysts’ prediction and went on to rewrite Indian scooter history by becoming the bestselling scooter right from the word go. And the ultra reliable, super convenient and reasonably fuel efficient Activa continues to do so, in it’s latest 110cc avatar.

Waiting lists for the Honda Activa still stretch from two, if you’re lucky, to four if you aren’t, months. While that isn’t something very creditable, it speaks volumes for the strong and ever increasing demand for the Honda Activa. Honda followed the Activa up with one of the best geared scooters the Indian scooter market has ever witnessed, the 150cc four stroke Honda Eterno. While the Eterno sold well, it’s volumes weren’t enough for Honda to keep it in production and last year, the Eterno was given as graceful retirement even as demand persisted.

In between the Eterno’s launch, the radically designed scooters in India of all time, the Honda Dio was launched, which itself has a massive fan following and was a sales success as well. The Dio, which uses the same 102cc Honda SOHC, horizontally inclined four stroke engine, hat the original Activa used still sells like hot cakes in India. The final scooter from Honda was the Aviator, which was billed as a man’s scooter with telescopic front fork and a bigger overall size and profile. But, the model never really took off as well as the Activa or the Dio.

While Honda reignited the almost-dead scooter segment in India, a number of competitors have sprung up since then but none with the stellar and enduring success that Honda has managed to enjoy over the last full decade. Hero Honda came up the Pleasure. TVS Motors, with the Spectra, the Scooty Pep and now the TVS Wego. Ertwhile scooter giant, Bajaj Auto came up with the Saffire, the Legend, the Four Stroke Chetak, the Kristal, and last but not the least the Wave DTSi.

The now defunct Kinetic Engineering Limited came up with the Kinetic Nova, the Nova 135, the Kinetic 4S and even tied up with SYM of Taiwan to ring in more automatic scooters, which Mahindra Two Wheelers, after taking over Kinetic now makes. Mahindra Two Wheelers’ portfolio includes the rebadged Nova called the Duro, the Mahindra Rodeo and the Mahindra SYM Flyte. Suzuki fired it’s own salvo with the highly successful Access 125.

So, this in essence is the Indian scooter market and like it can be seen, the Honda Activa was and is not without stiff competition. Future competition will include Yamaha, which is planning to make it’s foray in the cooter segment along with the Piaggio’s legendary Vespa all set to make it’s Indian sojourn soon.But, the phenomenon called the Activa has managed to outsell all of these scooters combined with the killer combination of bomb proof reliability and convenience even though it does not offer the varied bells and whistles other manufacturers do.

Now, Honda says something about more ungeared scooters for India and we’re listening enrapt. Honda says that it plans to unveil higher capacity ungeared scooters in the future for the Indian market and going by that, we could soon see ungeared scooters in the 150-250cc segment spawning an all new scooter culture in India. Also, Honda will focus more on the semi-urban and rural markets to increase it’s market presence as these sectors have traditionally been slow adapters to the gearless scooter revolution, which largely has been an urban phenomenon.

With this, Honda plans to increase it’s market share rapidly. Now, scooters for rural India will require more robust suspension as roads in many Indian villages and small towns continue to be non existent, with muddy and stony tracks often being called roads. So, we could have an all new set of scooters from Honda with more durability and ruggedness packed in. Honda plans to be number one in India in the two wheeler segment by 2020 and scooters may well be a major way with which Honda gets there. The competition better watch out.

Meanwhile, here are a few ominous words from HMSI’s President CEO Shinji Aoyoma,

We are the market leader in gearless scooters. With demand for gearless scooters to grow in the domestic market, we are upbeat on this segment. Going forward, HMSI sees 40%business from scooters and 60% from motorcycles. Demand for gear-less scooters will be more in Tier II and III cities. We will continue to manufacture more scooters to meet demand in the domestic market. We are very happy for the support from the people (in India). We need the same support to be number one in the next decade in India.

Via DNA

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March 23, 2011 | By Jay Prashanth · Tags:

Comments

4 Responses to “Competition, better watch out: Honda plans more Gearless Scooters for the Indian Scooter Market!”

A V Satish Chandra on March 23rd, 2011 7:40 pm

You have your history slightly wrong. The Dio was the scooter that followed the Activa and not the Eterno. The Eterno had demand only in the northern part of the country and Honda which is constrained for capacity (and also had been hit by a couple of workers strikes) decided to stop the production of the Eterno to concentrate on products that had a bigger market share.
Jay Prashanth on March 23rd, 2011 7:59 pm

Changes made. Thank you!

Cheers,

Jay
abdul basheer on May 31st, 2011 11:41 am

i like honda blake colours
RAKESH KAPOOR on December 19th, 2011 1:21 pm

I ALREADY USED ACTIVA SATISFACTORLIY NOW I WANT NEW SCOOTER WITH 125 CC TO 150 CC GEARLESS SCOOTER KINDLY LET ME KNOW WHEN THE THESE SCOOTERS AVAILABLE IN THE MARKET

THANKS
RAKESH KAPOOR