Harley-Davidson Street 750 continues to dominate Royal Enfield’s Continental GT in India

On April 16, 2015, an Autocar Professional report stated that Harley-Davidson’s India-built midsized cruiser Street 750 had drawn more buyers in the domestic market than its segment (engine displacement-wise) competitor – Royal Enfield’s Continental GT during FY2014-15. The Q1 (April-June 2015) sales results for FY2015-16 highlight that Harley-Davidson’s liquid-cooled, V-twin, 749cc cruiser, continues to dominate Royal Enfield’s air-cooled, single-cylinder, 535cc café racer styled model in terms of finding buyers in the domestic market.

While the Street 750 sold 524 units in Q1 FY2016, the Continental GT recorded sales of 434 units during the same period. Both models, however, have recorded a decline when compared with their respective Q1 FY2015 sales. The Street 750 and the Continental GT had sold 619 and 859 units respectively in Q1 FY2015.

Despite the Street 750’s starting price tag of Rs 432,000 (ex-showroom, Delhi), which is more than double the sticker price of the Royal Enfield Continental GT (which costs around Rs 210,000, on-road, Delhi), the popularity of the Harley clearly underlines Indian bike buyers’ aspirational values, preference for ever-lasting build quality, and the strong brand pull that the American motorcycle manufacturer commands.

The Harley-Davidson Street 750 continues to be the top seller in the midsized motorcycle category of engine displacement of more than 500cc but less than equal to 800cc. This sub-category has seen a year-on-year fall of 28.34 percent, selling 490 fewer fewer as compared to its Q1 FY2015’s sales of 1,729 units.

While the Street 750 and the Continental GT drive this sub-category, Kawasaki’s 71bhp-649cc Ninja 650 and Er-6n and Triumph Motorcycles’ 117bhp-675cc Daytona variants (675R and Daytona 675 ABS), 78bhp-675cc Street Triple ABS, and the 94bhp-800cc Tiger 800 variants (XRx and XCx) are the other prominent midsized motorcycles that make up the category in this engine displacement class.

Reporting decent growing numbers, Triumph Motorcycles’ above-mentioned products in this category, on the other hand, saw sales of 128 units during Q1 FY2016 as against 96 units sold in Q1 FY2015. It can be recalled that the British premium bikemaker had, on March 12, expanded its CKD portfolio for India by rolling out two new variants in its adventure tourer portfolio – Tiger XRx and Tiger XCx, which offer on-road and off-road riding applications respectively. By doing so, the company had brought down the price tag of the 800cc Tiger models as Tiger 800 XC earlier was imported into India as a CBU.