India’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer is now aiming for position of a leader in the scooter segment. The company has off curtained two indigenously developed scooters – Duet and Maestro Edge. This models will be hitting roads by the mid of October.
The newly announced scooters of Hero are tagged with an ex-showroom price of 49500 to 50700 (Delhi), while is expected to be on sale from 13th October, first day of Navratras. The company did not disclose price and launch date of ‘Duet’.
Pawan Munjal, CMD, Hero Motocorp after un-wrapping the scooters said “Now hero has entered next phase of its exciting journey, clearly target is to gun for market leadership in the segment too.”
He further added that “These products are testimony to our ongoing efforts to create the best R&D ecosystem that will create products from India for the world”. He did mention that these products built on new engine and chassis platform were first showcased at the Auto Expo 2014.
It is important for the company to focus on scooter segment as a decline has been observed in the motorcycle segment, whereas scooter’s demand is on a rise, mostly because it is an urban-centric vehicle.
During Fiscal Year 2015, motorcycles sales were up by 2.5%, whereas scooters segment had growth of 25%. In April – August month of the fiscal motorcycle sales fell by 4.3%, against which scooter’s sales grew by 10.8% at 1.9 million units.
In present Hero Motocorp deals in two models of scooter segments, Maestro and Pleasure, average sale of around 60000 units per month.
Hero’s previous partner Honda Motorcycles and Scooter India (HMSI) is presently a leading in scooter market of country. Although in Financial Year 2015 Hero was at second position during first five months of the fiscal. Hero Motocorp had a neck to neck competition with other manufacturer such as TVS, which exceeded cumulative sale with a marginal difference, where TVS sold 2.9 Lakh units against Hero’s 2.4 Lakh units, while HMSI sold more than 1 million units, out of total sale of 1.9 million units in the fiscal.
