Six months into FY2025, overseas shipments of the Qute are already 83% of FY2024’s 4,178 units, and 1,691 units shy of the best-ever FY2020’s total of 5,185 units. With two quarters left in this fiscal, Bajaj Auto’s exports of the made-in-India quadricycle are headed towards a new high.
26 Oct 2024 | 8626 Views | By Ajit Dalvi
Bajaj Auto continues to see rising export-market demand for its Qute quadricycle. The Pune-based auto major, which is India’s leading exporter of two- and three-wheelers and also the sole Indian manufacturer of a quadricycle, has been witnessing strong traction in exports, particularly in the current fiscal year. As per the latest ...
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Bajaj Auto continues to see rising export-market demand for its Qute quadricycle. The Pune-based auto major, which is India’s leading exporter of two- and three-wheelers and also the sole Indian manufacturer of a quadricycle, has been witnessing strong traction in exports, particularly in the current fiscal year. As per the latest wholesales data from industry body SIAM, Bajaj Auto shipped a total of 3,494 Qutes in April-September 2024, which constitutes robust 97% year-on-year growth (April-September 2023: 1,778 units).
SIAM export sales data reveals that in the past six months, the best monthly Qute exports were in July 2024 (720 units). Having averaged monthly overseas dispatches of 582 units compared to 296 units in April-September 2023, Bajaj Auto has already achieved 83% of its entire FY2024’s exports of 4,178 units of the Qute in the first half of FY2025. What’s more, this performance places the company well on track to achieve its best-ever fiscal sales.
FY2020, with 5,185 units, was the fiscal when the Qute clocked its best export numbers to date. At end-September 2024, Qute exports in the current fiscal are 1,691 units away from surpassing that total.
Compared to the rising export demand, sales of the Qute, which is India’s first-ever quadricycle (a sub-group of the LCV segment) and launched in FY2019, in the domestic market are low. Between April-September 2024, only 107 Qutes have been sold in the country, down 76% YoY (April-September 2023: 456 units). As per cumulative SIAM data, only 3,262 Qutes have been sold in India to date compared to 30,887 exported units.
Demand from Egypt helps accelerate Qute exports
What would have helped accelerate export demand for the Bajaj Qute is the recent move by Egypt to formally recognize quadricycles as vehicles for public transportation and also to replace the existing three-wheelers on its roads. Qute exports this fiscal commenced in Q1 with a first shipment of 500 units. The Qute is also exported to markets like Turkiye and Ghana, among others.
As is known, Bajaj Auto has a strong three-wheeler presence in Egypt, which was a major market for this product in the past. It is estimated that the country still has around 500,000 Bajaj RE three-wheelers plying on its roads. In end-2021, Egypt had banned import of three-wheelers (called tuk-tuks there) which had impacted Indian exports. In early March 2024, the Egyptian parliament approved a draft law aimed at creating a new vehicle category for quadricycles to transport people.
The government of Egypt plans to progressively replace all three-wheelers with quadricycles, and its recent move to recognise the quadricycle vehicle category is expected to give a major fillip to exports of the Bajaj Qute and could translate into a strong export business opportunity for Bajaj Auto.
Electric Qute in the pipeline
Meanwhile on the electric vehicle front, Bajaj Auto has aggressively upped the ante in the domestic market – it is the No. 3 in both two- and three-wheeler retails in first-half FY2025, and was No. 2 in both EV segments in September 2024. Now, the company is making moves to extend the electrification strategy to the Qute.
Speaking in a conference call earlier this year, Rakesh Sharma, executive director, Bajaj Auto, had said: “We are investing behind the Qute platform. When the BS-IV, BS-VI transitions took place, there was such a lot of work which was there in our R&D that we deprioritize Qute only because of the volumes. But we are now looking at an upgrade, which will provide the customer with a tech condition in Qute. And we are already now got a CNG-based Qute, and we will be working on an electric Qute as well.”
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