Royal Enfield closing in on Yamaha, sans scooters

Niche bikemaker Royal Enfield has rapidly closed the gap with Japanese bike giant Yamaha for the fifth spot in India’s two-wheeler space.

Eicher Motors-controlled Royal Enfield clocked more sales than Yamaha in six of the 11 months so far this year. In 2017, Royal Enfield was ahead of Yamaha in four out of the 12 months.

What is interesting is that Royal Enfield has been able to achieve this feat without the support of scooters which has become a mainstay of the Yamaha portfolio. Bajaj Auto is the only other two-wheeler maker that does not have scooters in its portfolio.

The average selling price of a Royal Enfield bike is Rs 115,000 while that of Yamaha is believed to be well below Rs 100,000 due to a lower price tag of scooters. Scooters make up 46 percent of Yamaha’s domestic sales placing it on the fifth spot.

During the financial year (till November) though, Yamaha is ahead in overall domestic two-wheeler sales of 5.68 lakh (growth of 0.88 percent) as against 5.59 lakh (growth of 8.91 percent) clocked by Royal Enfield.

In the last FY, Yamaha clocked sales of 7.89 lakh units, against 6.51 lakh units of Royal Enfield.

Both the companies have been feeling the heat of the slowdown in the market where other companies performed better. As per data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, two-wheeler sales grew 11 percent during April-November.

In November, sales of Royal Enfield bikes dipped 4 percent to 65,026 units while that of Yamaha grew 14 percent to 60,116 units. Sales of the industry grew 7 percent during November to 1.64 million.

Yamaha has faced a strong competition which restricted its growth prospects. The dual onslaught of Honda and TVS Motors in the scooters market and a resurgent Bajaj Auto in the motorcycle segment stymied the growth of all players. Yamaha's market share in the scooter segment dipped to 5.34 percent during April-November this year as against 6.45 percent clocked in the same month last year.

Yamaha has already exited the budget motorcycle (100-110cc) segment where the leader is the Hero Splendor. Its share in the motorcycle segment has remained largely unchanged at 3.13 percent during the April-November period as against 3.06 percent clocked in the same period last year.