Yamaha eyes 10 per cent share in domestic scooter market

Japanese two-wheeler maker Yamaha is eying around 10 per cent share in the fast growing scooter market in India this year riding on its three models.
The company, which is present in the country through a wholly-owned subsidiary, currently has over 7 per cent market share in the scooter segment, which is pegged at around 3 lakh units per month.
"Currently, we are doing around 23,000 units of scooters a month. In the next few months we are aiming to get around 10 per cent market share in the vertical as our products are now well established in the market," Yamaha Motor India Sales Vice President (Sales and Marketing) Roy Kurian told PTI.

Yamaha sells the Ray, Ray Z and Alpha scooter models in India. While Ray and Ray Z were launched in the country in 2012 and 2013 respectively, Alpha made its debut during the Auto Expo, held earlier this year.
"While Ray and Ray Z cater to youngsters, Alpha on the other hand caters to the family segment, which accounts for around 70 per cent of the entire scooter sales in the country," Kurian said.
According to Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers scooter segment has grown impressively in the country clocking 23.24 per cent increase at 36,02,744 units in 2013-14 at a time when other categories in the Indian automobile suffered from a prolonged demand slump.

Last fiscal, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India led the scooter market with 19,02,859 units, followed by Hero MotoCorp at 6,90,079 units and TVS Motor Co with 4,56,975 units while Yamaha sold 1,76,981 units. Suzuki Motorcycle India sold 2,96,805 units during the financial year.

On the market break-up, South and West India account for majority of the company's scooter sales.
"South and West regions contribute around 70 per cent of our total scooter sales currently. We have an established sales network in these regions," he added.
Though scooters are getting into the rural areas, urban markets like Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, remain the prime markets, Kurian said.

When asked about the company's plans to expand product portfolio, Kurian said: "Our current focus is to consolidate these three models in the domestic market by taking them to newer markets and making more consumers aware of the product".
The company's current service network comprises over 400 dealers, 250 branches and around 500 sub-dealers across India. It produces scooters at Surajpur facility, which has an annual production capacity of 10 lakh units.
Yamaha is also coming up with a new facility in Chennai, where it plans to start manufacturing scooters from next year. The new plant would have an installed capacity of 18 lakh units by 2018.