The Avenger models – Street 150, Street 220 and Cruise 220 – have become one of the bestselling motorcycle brands in just about two months’ time of being on commercial sale.
21 Jan 2016 | 15440 Views | By Amit Panday
The Avenger triplets from Bajaj Auto have made it to the Top 10 motorcycles’ list for the first time, for December 2015.
The Avenger models – Street 150, Street 220 and Cruise 220– which were officially launched by the company on October 27, 2015, have become one of ...
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The Avenger triplets from Bajaj Auto have made it to the Top 10 motorcycles’ list for the first time, for December 2015.
The Avenger models – Street 150, Street 220 and Cruise 220 – which were officially launched by the company on October 27, 2015, have become one of the bestselling motorcycle brands in just about two months’ time of being on commercial sale.
While this marks an instant success – just like the Duet and Fascino scooters have delivered for Hero and Yamaha respectively in recent times – for Bajaj Auto, the development highlights the latent demand for affordable cruisers in the Indian two-wheeler market. It is to be noted that the Bajaj Avenger brand has managed to buck the trend of declining numbers in the market, specifically post the festive season last year.
The Bajaj Avenger brand took the 10th position in the Top 10 bestselling motorcycles’ list with sales of 20,182 units. While the Avenger 150 sold 9,234 units, the bigger siblings sold a total of 10,948 units. The company had sold only 2,908 units in December 2014.
It can be recalled that Autocar Professional broke the story on Bajaj readying a 150cc cruiser under its Avenger brand on October 16, 2015. It was estimated that with plans to venture into an unexplored segment of 150cc cruiser motorcycles, Bajaj Auto was eyeing to roughly double its average monthly sales in this category.
“As reported earlier, tapping into the unexplored category, the company plans to aggressively build up on its sales in the cruiser category. But the management’s monthly sales target of the new cruiser model portfolio even exceeded Autocar Professional’s earlier projections of close to 10,000 units per month. Bajaj Auto aims to sell close to 20,000 units of the three Avenger models put together,” quoted the report filed on October 27, 2015.
Giving a sense of his company’s firm plans to boost the Avenger brand in the near future, Eric Vas, president, motorcycle business, Bajaj Auto had then told Autocar Professional “Yes, we will be the first-to-market with the new Avenger 150, which will certainly give us an advantage. We plan to broaden the segment (cruiser motorcycle) and create new sub-segments in it going forward.”
Bajaj Auto’s Pulsar brand and CT100 also featured in Top 10 list for December 2015. While the CT100 sold 34,480 units and occupied the sixth slot, the Pulsar brand ranked seventh with sales of 34,067 units.
The eighth and ninth positions were held by Royal Enfield and TVS Motor Company with Classic 350 and Apache models respectively. Royal Enfield’s bestseller, the Classic 350, sold 23,650 units last month. The TVS Apache, which returned to the elite list after three months, fetched sales of 20,599 units for its company in December 2015.
The TVS Apache range was last seen in the top 10 motorcycles’ list in August 2015 when it held the ninth slot with sales of 23,899 units.
The top positions have largely remained unchanged – with four positions occupied by Hero MotoCorp and one by Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI).
The Hero Splendor topped the list with sales of 184,856 units in December 2015, followed by Hero’s HF Deluxe model(s) that sold 93,451 units. Hero’s Passion and Honda’s CB Shine held third and fourth ranks with sales of 55,765 units and 51,047 units respectively.
The Hero Glamour ranked fifth with sales of 48,748 units in December 2015.
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