Royal Enfield replaces TVS Motor as 4th largest motorcycle seller in last three months

Royal Enfield has dethroned TVS Motor Company to become fourth-largest motorcycle seller in cumulative domestic sales in between November 2016 to January 2017 in India. Royal Enfield is a two-wheeler brand of Indian automobile major Eicher Motors and it has sold 1,70,292 units in aforementioned period whereas TVS sold 1,18,489 units in the same period.

TVS has been mass manufacturing commuter motorcycles and the recent cash crunch has badly hurt the buyers in that segment, unlike Royal Enfield that is positioned for ‘lifestyle’ choice or product. The classification made Royal Enfield less susceptible to demonetisation.

Another challenge manufacturers are facing is the application of BS-IV norms from April 2017. But for Royal Enfield, forecasting production does not include ‘commuter motorcycles’ like TVS which has got a huge number of commuters to take care of.

Siddhartha Lal, CEO, Royal Enfield said: “Himalayan has done exceptionally well. We are delighted with its performance and it is growing in numbers. Going ahead, we will have one big product this financial year, we will be launching something significant next year, we will have variants as well.”

Therefore, demonetisation bit a huge chunk off to keep TVS’ sales figures go down since November 2016.

Before demonetisation hit the manufacturers, TVS sales were at 96,673 units in October 2016, while Royal Enfield was at 58,379 units in the same month. However, after demonetisation, Royal Enfield continued to be steady on sales numbers thereafter as they sold 55,843 units in November, 56,316 units in December and 58,133 units in January, while TVS came down to 45,359 units, 37,316 units and 35,994 units respectively. This made Royal Enfield move up by a position to become the fourth-largest motorcycle company after Hero MotoCorp, Honda 2 Wheelers and Bajaj Auto.