The total sales of Bajaj Auto in the month of March 2009 were flat at 1.54 lakh vs 1.537 lakh units month-on-month (MoM). Exports were down 8% at 46874 vs 50738. Total sales were down 13% at 1.54 lakh vs 1.76 lakh year-on-year (YoY) while two-wheeler sales were down 15% at 1.33 lakh vs 1.56 lakh YoY.

Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director of Bajaj Auto, said exports would remain under pressure in April, May and would get back to normal from June. He sees domestic bike sales at 1.2 lakh units per month by June.

He further stated that input prices had eased since January and there was a gain of Rs 800 per bike. He reiterated that the focus for small cars was on fuel efficiency, not affordability and was also looking at countering strength of competition via new launches. According to him, total sales are likely to go up to 2 lakh units by June.

Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview with Rajiv Bajaj on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video

Q: March has looked a tad better for Bajaj Auto. Tell us how the quarter ahead – April-June – looks? Do you think that sales for Bajaj Auto in particular will start crawling up? Will it be much better than the January-March quarter?

A: I certainly hope they will do more than crawl. Let me just briefly share the numbers with you. This is about our domestic motorcycles where we took the biggest hit up until December. December was a low with about 60,000 motorcycles sold in the domestic market. We have made good progress over the last one quarter – January-March – basically on the back of the launch of the new motorcycle, the XCD 135. We have come to about 95,000 vehicles as of March, which is fairly good growth. We hope to continue that in the April-June quarter, both on the back of XCD, and also on the back of two new launches of the new Pulsars.

My own expectation would be that just as we have progressed from 60,000 to 90,000 in the last quarter, we should see almost equal progress into the next quarter. So, I’d really like domestic motorcycle sales to be closer to 120,000 motorcycles by the time we come to June.

Q: What about exports, you’ll practically dominate that scene? We have seen some contraction there, a fairly serious slowdown. Do you see any improvement in your export markets? What numbers are you projecting for the June quarter, in the first place?

A: For the year as a whole, last year, our exports grew by about 25%. We have seen pressure on exports since January. The reason for this has been very simple that we were hedged at about Rs 40 to a dollar. Hence, we were unable to respond to distributors in countries where their currency had also devalued in recent months.

Since April 1, this situation doesn’t exist anymore. We now realise whatever the current rates are. We have been able to correct our prices for exports. So, my own expectation is that, in April and May, we will see continued pressure on the export front because of whatever is on the pipeline. But definitely from June that will revive back. For example, my guess would be that if we are currently exporting about 40,000 motorcycles a month, that should be somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 again from June onwards.

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