Lml Fires First Salvo At Bajaj Auto In Fight For Supremacy

In what looks like the beginning of an open war between the two established two-wheeler giants, Bajaj Auto and LML, the latter has fired the first salvo by accusing the former of making clones of LML products.

"LML has already emerged as the market leader in the two-wheeler industry. It is setting the standards of the market and is deciding the kind of products which are to be offered to the consumer," Deepak Singhania, MD of LML told Business Standard.

"Our competitors," says Singhania, "are compelled to produce two-wheelers which look more like cloned versions of LML scooters rather than an original product of some standard. We have won the battle of the markets.

 

"Our competitors have copied our features such as breaking system, ignition, suspension, thermodynamics and even packing. We were the first ones to start pre-packing of vehicles which is to be cut and opened before the consumer. We started it last year. They have copied that too, though the covering which they are using is shoddy. But nevertheless, LML is compelling them to shed their inhibitions and adopt its features, he says.

The leadership, says Singhania, is not defined by the numbers which you can churn out, but depends on who is setting the standard and who has the quality and the technical superiority.

On the prospects of LML, he said, "We are doing very well and shall continue to do well. The only constraint is lack of capacity. In the coming marriage season, you may read that LML's share has fallen in the market, and that of its competitors has risen. But that will be due to the fact our competitors will be able to make use of their idle capacity and we shall not have any capacity left to cater to the increasing demand of the marriage season.

At present, LML is completing the spade work to start the implementation of its ancillarisation programme, which Singhania claims, is the most ambitious ever undertaken in the country.

It already has 56 ancillaries located in Kanpur and is proposing another 56 at a cost of Rs 25 crore. This will require a space of 75 acres, all located within one or two km of the mother factory in the Panki industrial area of the city.

The unique thing about these ancillaries is that they will be supplying their products directly to the assembly line rather than through a warehouse.

These will be linked with the mother factory through Electronic Data Interchange System.