Honda Motorcycle & Scooter said domestic sales jumped 14% in January 2015 over the same month last year, in stark contrast to the slow growth reported by other motorcycle companies. Exports too grew by 14% in the month.
Total sales, including exports, was 393,787 units, up from 3,44,750 units sold in January’14.
In comparison, Honda MotoCorp reported flat numbers and Bajaj Auto reported a decline of 9.2% year on year.
Domestic sales contributed 344,678 units to the overall sales, growing grew at 14% at the end of January’15. Honda’s overall sales (domestic + export) grew at 14% as well in January’15 on a Y-O-Y basis.
According to Honda, the growth is almost 5 times that of the Indian two-wheeler industry in January’15.
Honda is rapidly taking market share from rivals.
For the ten months of the current financial year, Honda’s domestic market share stood at 28%, and total sales for the period is up 23%, which is nearly double the pace of two-wheeler industry.
Recently, Honda entered a tie-up with Shriram Automall India Limited under which the latter will provide financing and facilities to the pre-owned 2-wheeler segment in an effort to provide a structure to this unstructured market.
BAJAJ AUTO
Jan-15 sales are below estimate at 288,746 units, 9.2% de-growth YoY. While exports grew 3.9% YoY (-13.9% Month on Month), domestic sales continued to remain weak with 19.3% YoY decline (+18.4% MoM).
Domestic motorcycle demand was impacted due to excise duty hike and the management a recovery is expected only from Mar-15 onwards.
HERO MOTOCORP
The company’s Jan-15 volumes were flat YoY (6.3% MoM), to 558,982 units (v/s est 578,091 units) impacted by two day long transporters strike during the month.
TVS MOTORS
TVS Motor’s January sales were below estimates at 188,598 units, a growth of about 1.2% YoY, partly due 6-7 days of production loss on account of maintenance shutdown and Pongal.
Scooters volumes grew 24% YoY to 56,032 units (est 62,500 units).
Motorcycle volumes grew by 7% YoY to 69,949 units (est 85,000 units), while Mopeds de-grew by 19.4% YoY to 55,535 units (est 68,000 units). Three-wheelers have grown by 5.1% YoY to 7,082 units and exports fell by about 13.3% YoY to 25,029 units.