Hero Splendor Reclaims First Position In Q3; TVS Gains In Scooter Segment

After losing its spot to the Honda Activa 3G in the first half of the current financial year, the Hero Splendor has finally regained its lost glory as the position holder of India's highest selling two-wheeler. The results of the third quarter definitely declared the Splendor the winner, however, the overall figures of the ongoing fiscal are still in favour of its Japanese rival.

The entire Indian two-wheeler industry also suffered from cash crunch due to the demonetization during the last two months of the last year. Due to this, both the Splendor and the Activa also registered steep sales decline in the third quarter, by 9.4 per cent and 4.3 per cent, respectively. Despite poor sales in the last two months of Q3 the Splendor recorded a pretty impressive sale of 5,91,017 units in the overall quarter, against the 5,69,996 units of the Activa. 

Commenting on the same, Ashok Bhasin, head of sales, marketing and customer care, Hero MotoCorp, told Economic Times, “Splendor enjoys strong brand equity among consumers across the country. Our best-in-class service and contemporary products, supported by effective communication campaigns, have helped sustain Splendor’s leadership (in January),” Bhasin explained."

The popular 100cc motorcycle also performed well in the month of January 2017, giving a good start to the last quarter. It recorded a growth of 4.6 percent in the month, while the Activa continued with a decline of 6.2 per cent. However, if we have a look at the results of the entire fiscal till now, the Splendor has managed to clock overall sales of 21,16,911 units, while that of the Honda Activa is 23,03,398 units. So, we can see that this is a gap of around 1.86 lakh units, which is quite difficult to be filled in in just the two remaining months of Q4.

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“The industry was adversely impacted by poor retail demand in the last quarter because of the lower cash availability and overall economic slowdown in the market, post demonetisation. However, with Hero’s nationwide drive to immediately install and activate POS machines at our retail outlets and several other effective initiatives to enable cashless transactions, including innovative and consumer-friendly financing schemes, we have been able to consistently improve the situation. With improvement in the currency situation and consumer sentiment, Hero’s volumes are gradually picking up,” Bhasin added.

While Hero's position remained at the top in the motorcycle segment, the brand lost the second spot in the scooter segment to Chennai-based TVS Motor Company. With a decline of 60 per cent in sales for two consecutive months (December and January), Hero MotoCorp sold 6,58,255 scooters till now in the ongoing financial year. On the other hand, TVS surged ahead with sales of 6,77,172 units in the same time period, claiming the spot of the second largest scooter brand in the country.

On this achievement, Aniruddha Haldar, vice-president (marketing – scooters), TVS Motor Company, said, “Our focus on consumers is the reason that we have been able to leverage long-term shifts like scooterisation and also weathered short-term turbulence in the last few months.”

TVS recently launched the updated version of its Wego, a BS-IV compliant model with new added features, strengthening its presence in the market. The company is further going to launch another updated model within a few weeks, and most probably, it will be the 2017 version of its most popular scooter, the Jupiter. These strategic launches will further help the company maintain its momentum in the coming financial year as well.

Source: ET