Yamaha to focus on scooters

Yamaha's market share in the scooter segment is 7.5 %, nearly double than its share of 4 % in the motorcycle market

Yamaha Motor India, a maker of motorcycles and scooters, will now be focusing more on the scooter segment. The company feels that more and more people, of late, are shifting to scooters.

With the growing number of working women and female students in the country, the demand for scooters is increasing. “For these people, scooters are more convenient” to commute compared with motorcycles, company’s vice president (sales & marketing), Roy Kurian, told Business standard.

For instance, he said, the share of scooters among the total two-wheelers sales in Kerala had increased from 40 per cent in 2012 to 50 per cent in 2013 and to 60 per cent in 2014. Last year, the average monthly sales of two-wheelers in Kerala stood at 70,000 units.

Kurian envisages a similar trend in other parts of the country,  particularly in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Accordingly, “Yamaha is going to focus more on scooters while continuing to grow in the motorcycle segment,” he said, adding southern and western regions account for 70 per cent of the scooter sales.

Yamaha is currently offering three models of scooters- Ray, RayZ and Alpha. Its Rs 1,500 crore Chennai manufacturing unit, which was commissioned recently, had started producing scooters to begin with.

At present, Kurian said, Yamaha was selling 20,000 to 22,000 scooters a month.  Its market share in the scooter segment is 7.5 per cent, nearly double than its share of 4 per cent  in the motorcycle market.

On the whole, he said, Yamaha’s sales were growing at a much higher rate than that of the average industry growth. In 2013, the company sold 460,000 units registering a growth rate of 35 per cent over the previous year. Yamaha’s sales in 2014 at 560,000 units increased by 24 per cent, while the industry witnessed an average growth rate of 10-11 per cent during these two years.

“This year, our target is to grow at 30 per cent. We are expecting to sell 800,000 units domestically,”  Kurian said. If the envisaged export of 350,000 units were added, the total sales of Yamaha India in 2015 would be 1.15 million.

Roy said the company would also be expanding its network of dealers from the existing 400 to 600 this year. He, however, remained tightlipped regarding launching of new models.