Yamaha Back On Track, October Sales Grow 169%

After buying out Escorts and occupying the driver's seat, Yamaha is fast gaining lost ground in the Indian motorcycles market. The company's bike sales grew 169 per cent in October 2001 over the same month of 2000. While sales of Yamaha bikes grew around 250 per cent, the Rajdoot brand grew 39 per cent.

A steady growth in Yamaha sales has been witnessed after the Japanese two-wheeler maker bought out the Indian partner, Escorts, and converted the venture (Yamaha Motor India Pvt Ltd or the erstwhile Escorts Yamaha Motorcycles Ltd) into a wholly owned subsidiary.

In October 2001, Yamaha sold 28,000 units compared with 10,410 units in October 2000 and 17,355 in September 2001. While Yamaha gained market share during October 2001, there was a 6.6 per cent fall in the market share of Hero Honda, the market leader.

In July 2000, when Yamaha bought 24 per cent of Escorts' shareholding in the joint venture, the company sold 11,080 units of motorcycles. The entire shareholding was acquired in April this year. In July 2001, Yamaha sold 14,335 units.

The market share of the Yamaha brand in October 2001 more than doubled from 3.8 per cent in October 2000 to 7.9 per cent. The Yamaha and Rajdoot brands together notched up a 9.8 per cent market share against 6.1 per cent during the same month last year.

"We are now implementing new strategies for product development and marketing," says R R Prasad, general manager -- marketing, Yamaha Motor India. The company is working hard to change its image as a manufacturer of powerful, sturdy bikes, and not being the fuel-efficient kind. Sales figures over the past months indicate that the effort has already started showing results.

In October, for instance, Yamaha sold 28,000 bikes in the country. Of these, around 17,000 units (or nearly 61 per cent) came from the sale of four-stroke fuel-economy bikes Crux and Crux R models. Crux was launched in the beginning of the year and Crux R about two months ago. While Crux is aimed primarily at the rural or semi-urban market, its upgrade Crux R is aimed at the city consumers.

The two stroke models, RX 135 and RXZ sold around 3,000 units and the other four-stroke bikes YBX and YB 125 sold around 1,500 units. However, these bikes address consumers who seek power and are not fixated on fuel efficiency. The remaining numbers came from the sale of the Rajdoot model.

Meanwhile, the company has also earmarked a large adspend for the year. "The Yamaha brandname enjoyed a high level of equity in India. But it had lost its edge due to poor promotional and advertising campaigns. We will address this immediately with a new set of advertisements. We want to tell the world that we are here," Prasad said.