Honda vrooms past Hero in 13 mkts,total share soars 3% to 27%

Two-wheeler major Honda Motorcycle & Scooter (HMSI) has not only toppled its estranged partner Hero MotorCorp in as many as 11 states, including Maharashtra and two UTs, as of the June quarter but also increased its market share by 3 per cent from the entrenched leader to 27 per cent now.
HMSI's market share has gone to 27 per cent this year so far from 24 per cent a year before,while Hero's came down to 40 from 41.3 per cent, according to the SIAM numbers.
As of the June quarter, HMSI, which has been consistently contributing almost 50 per cent of incremental volume since May on its volume ramp up, now is the number one two-wheeler brand in 11 states -- Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Kerala, Punjab, Delhi, Himachal, Goa, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal and the two Union Territories -- Chandigarh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Yadvinder Singh Guleria, senior vice-president for sales and marketing at HMSI, said while the firm has a national market share of 27 per cent, up from 24 per cent in Q1 of last fiscal, it has over over 50 per cent share in Chandigarh, Goa, and Manipur; over 40 per cent in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Arunachal, the Andamans, over 30 per cent in Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Himachal, Jammu & Kashmir, and Nagaland.
It gained 4 per cent in market share in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan; 3 per cent in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Assam; 2 per cent in Gujarat, Punjab, Jharkhand, and Odisha; and 1 per cent in Bengal and Goa during the first quarter.

Hero, however, still stays ahead in the faster growing states like UP, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and most of the northeastern states. TVS Motor leads the Tamil Nadu market, though.

Guleria attributed this growth to increasing scooterisation as well as capacity addition, which has seen its scooter capacity jumping by 1.2 million since this February.
"We lead in 11 states and two UTs, which together account of one-third of all two-wheelers sold in the country today. In fact we have been growing 50 per cent faster than industry this year, helping us increase our market share in 19 states and two UTs," Guleria said, adding HMSI's scooter market share now stands at 58 per cent.

He said these markets together contribute 33 per cent of all the national volume.
But when asked whether dethroning Hero is a near-term reality, Guleria told PTI here today that they "have no such target as in terms of both installed capacity as well as reach, we need to do a lot of catch-up with Mujnal firm.