Export mkt has stabilised; worst is behind us: Bajaj Auto

Two wheeler major Bajaj Auto clocked highest ever three wheeler monthly sales in month of October this year. The company’s total sales of vehicles for the month stood at 4.11 lakh units.

Rajiv Bajaj, managing director, Bajaj Auto told CNBC-TV18 that October 2012 was the second best month ever in our history of the company. "Export markets have stabilized, but what has contributed to this growth is the domestic market," he added. The company sold about 25,000 three wheelers in the domestic market which is also an all-time high. Going ahead, Bajaj Auto expects the sales momentum to continue in the festive season (October –November) and in the wedding season (December) as well. "October and November will look good this year as compared to last year, especially, November-to-November because last year the festive season was over in October," he elaborated. Below is the edited transcript of Bajaj’s interview with CNBC-TV18. Q: Can you detail the October sales numbers? A: We had a very good month. It was the second best month ever in our history. We did a total of 411,000 motorcycles and three wheelers. Out of that, total motorcycles were about 361,000, it is the second highest number of motorcycles that we have ever sold. We did over 50,000 three wheelers, the highest three wheeler sales for any month. Q: 50,000 is 10 percent higher than what we were expecting. Does that mean all your problems are behind you from Sri Lanka, Egypt etc.? A: I would say yes and the export markets have stabilized, but what has contributed to this growth is the domestic market. We have done about 25,000 three wheelers in the domestic market which is also a kind of all-time high for us. Exports have been about 27,000 three wheelers, so it is not remarkable, but we are grateful that it has recovered nicely. Our domestic motorcycle sales at over 260,000 have also been the highest ever. We were looking for some positive signs from the domestic market and we saw them in the last month. Q: Can you just break up this 3.61 lakh number for motorcycles? A: We have about 62,000 of Boxer, which has continued to do extremely well especially in Africa. We have close to 60,000 of Platina. A 155,000 of Discover riding on the back of the success of the new Discover 125 ST of which we did 45,000 in October, so that was the highlight for me. We did about 85,000 of all Pulsar motorcycles put together. Q: How has November started off, the first bit of this festive month? A: It looks good. The momentum continues. October and November will look good this year as compared to last year, especially, November-to-November because last year the festive season was over in October, so November will look artificially better. We will continue to see some momentum in December, because the marriage season in particular is very strong in the north all through December this year. That does contribute towards better sales. This is going to be a reasonable quarter for the industry. Q: Given what you have seen in the market and also what you have read from the monthly numbers of your peers, the monthly numbers do you get the sense that through October-November you will come out gaining market share or are your peers also growing at the same pace? A: Between April and September we did gain about 3 or 4 percentage points. We moved up to about 27.5 percent in the domestic market in terms of motorcycles, 35 percent overall. I am not sure we will make further gains immediately, although I would like to. From what I can see Honda is also gaining share, Hero is losing share, the others are stagnant. When we put our new amazing 100cc bike out in the market in January, we will once again begin to gain some share in Q4.