Honda bullish on 160cc motorcycle market in India

Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) aims to roll out another 160cc variant named CB Hornet 160R closer to the festive season later this year. The 162.71cc, 14.5bhp premium CB Unicorn 160 commuter motorcycle has provided a good foothold to HMSI in the 150cc-200cc segment, which is dominated by the models from the stables of Bajaj Auto (Pulsars) and Yamaha Motor India (FZ series).

The model, which rolled out in the third week of December 2014, had already crossed the cumulative sales mark of 100,000 units in July and as on August 31, 2015, its cumulative domestic sales stand at a little over 123,000 units. This averages close to 14,000 units per month, which is a healthy monthly sales volume for a company that was struggling to find traction in the said segment over years.

It can be recalled that Autocar Professional, in its report on July 27, 2015, had underlined HMSI successfully grabbing a foothold in the premium commuter motorcycle segment.

Honda’s CB Unicorn 160 is a volume seller in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, which are the largest contributors to its nationwide sales.

On the back of new-found success in this class, HMSI will now soon roll out its CB Hornet 160R model, which is derived from the CB Unicorn 160. The upcoming model, as is known, borrows all mechanical features from its sibling (the CB Unicorn 160).

The positioning of CB Hornet 160R can be fundamentally understood from what Y S Guleria, senior vice-president (sales and marketing), HMSI, had explained in his recent interview to Autocar Professional. He was talking in the context of the positioning of the Honda Dio and the Honda Aviator scooter models vis-à-vis the Honda Activa models.

“It is very important to understand that whenever a segment becomes popular, it is natural that sub-segmentation will happen within the same. The mindset of consumers leads to this. When a high-selling model becomes popular and common, it becomes a human desire to own something else that can differentiate them from the others. As a marketer, we want to provide our customers those options that can be different from the common while assuring them the same deliverables,” he had elaborated.

The company will place the CB Hornet 160R next to the CB Unicorn 160 but as a visually more appealing motorcycle model, said Guleria.

“The CB Unicorn 160 cannot cater to all the needs of its wide class of buyers (age group of early 20s). The new CB Hornet 160R will fill in that void with its more youthful design and styling,” he told Autocar Professional on the sidelines of the recently concluded SIAM annual convention in New Delhi.

HMSI has set itself a goal of selling 200,000 units of its CB Unicorn 160 by December 2015. The upcoming 160cc variant is expected to surely substantiate the sales of the other in this class. For now, the company is keeping its fingers crossed for the approaching festive season. Industry experts say that its foremost priority (for the festive season) would be to have its right inventory at the right dealerships for good results.

Also read: Honda targets sales of 200 CBR 650Fs in India by March 2016