Two-wheeler race: Honda scooters help widen lead over Bajaj

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26 Aug, 2025 12:21

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When Japanese heavyweight bikemaker Honda parted ways from India’s Hero Group a few years back, it said it was aiming to achieve the number-one spot in the market in about a decade.

The claim looked tall back then: to achieve the top spot, Honda would have needed to displace its erstwhile partner and technology-disciple Hero, which held over half the market share whereas the Japanese company was starting from zero.

But the battle has begun with gusto: last year, the Indian division, Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI) raced past former number-two, Bajaj Auto.

Latest sales data suggest that Honda has now consolidated its lead over Bajaj. According to figures for the October-December quarter, Honda now has a 24.2 percent market share (compared to 17.9 percent in the same quarter the year before).

The Japanese company’s gain did not come at the cost of leader Hero (whose market share was down a marginal 0.4 percent to 42.1 percent) but rather Bajaj (whose share slipped from 19.4 percent to 13.4 percent).

Interestingly, much of Honda’s superior performance has come on the back of the success of its scooter models such as the Activa. The company today holds 52.3 percent in the segment, rival Hero has 19.6 percent while Bajaj is conspicuously absent in the market.

Bajaj, which dominated the scooter landscape in India during the ‘80s and ‘90s exited the business citing lack of margins and in a bid to give its brand a premium positioning and refused to enter it back again despite a sudden re-invigoration of the segment in the late 2000s.

But even in the motorcycle segment, Honda’s products such as the Dream Neo and the Dream Yuga, along with the older Shine and Unicorn models are witnessing a healthy traction.

But there are two other reasons that are working in Honda’s favour. The first is distribution, says Shubhabrata Marmar, Executive Editor at Overdrive magazine.

“Honda is working extremely hard towards increasing its distribution scale. The thing with distribution is when you create your own distribution network from zero [in a big way], you’re biting away at other’s distribution chains and it causes problems for the established players. You’re taking away trained salespeople who were working for others,” he says.

The second advantage that Honda enjoys is the trust factor that is associated with it, says Marmar. It would be fair to say that a key reason behind Hero Honda’s stellar run in the country was because of the technology and assurance in the minds of customers that Honda lent to the company.

While that may have worked for Honda, what hasn’t worked for Bajaj is the clear slowness in bringing products to the market.

Hero has responded to the Honda challenge with a sense of urgency -- in the past few months, including at the Auto Expo last month, it showcased as many as over 20 models, including motorcycles and scooters in diesel, electric and hybrid fuels, along with superbikes and streetbikes (though many were at the concept stage) –- Bajaj has been slow off the block.

In fact, Bajaj’s current line-up depends heavily on the dated Pulsar brand and the Discover, which hasn’t exactly set the market on fire.

All this suggests that the Indian market is in the midst of unprecedented action and any amount of slowness could cost Bajaj dearly.

“The aggression that Honda has shown, the effort that Hero is putting in to ensure it stays at the top, all of this hasn’t happened before,” Marmar says.

But it is too early to say that Bajaj is losing the battle, he adds. “The opportunity [to regain market share] is there for the company but if it stays out of the fast-growing scooter market, it will be difficult.”

He also points out that Bajaj does not appear too worried about the market share game as long as its profitability is intact.