INDIA SALES: Top 10 Motorcycles in January  

Hero MotoCorp’s Splendor remains the undisputed leader when it comes to India’s bestselling motorcycle brands. In January 2017, the Hero Splendor has also grabbed the title of being India’s bestselling two-wheeler brand too. The brand has garnered sales of 208,512 units in January, up by 4.60 percent YoY.

The HF Deluxe, Hero’s other 100cc mass commuter motorcycle brand, more popular in the rural pockets, ranked second in the list with sales of 122,202 units. The Hero HF Deluxe has marked a YoY growth of 13.92 percent, which also underlines a respectable recovery in the market as compared to the sluggish December.

In one of the rare and good months for Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI), its 125cc bestseller, CB Shine, has ranked third in the list selling 70,294 units in January. The CB Shine has, however, marked a YoY decline of 8.19 percent reflecting that the model still needs to recover more in order to get at par with its last year’s performance.

The Hero Passion registered sales of 56,335 units in January and has ranked fourth in the list. The brand was a hot-seller last year and saw gradual decline in its month-on-month sales. Hero had sold total 80,261 units under its Passion brand in January 2016.

Royal Enfield’s top selling model, Classic 350, which also saw the rollout of new colourful variants under its vintage Redditch umbrella, has recorded total domestic sales of 39,391 units, up by 44 percent YoY. The RE Classic 350 stood out as the fifth bestselling motorcycle model in January 2017.

At sixth position is Hero’s 125cc executive commuter motorcycle model, Glamour, which clocked sales of 38,204 units, down by 39.37 percent YoY.

Following it is Bajaj Auto’s Pulsar brand at the seventh position. The Pulsar brand, which has witnessed its entire line-up now upgraded to BS IV norms, has also seen several other cosmetic and mechanical changes to almost all models.

According to Eric Vas, president – motorcycle business, Bajaj Auto, the Pulsar 150, the bestselling model under the brand’s umbrella, has a much more refined engine, now compliant with BS IV emission norms.

“The BS IV changes on the Pulsars are quite significant changes in terms of refinement, power delivery, throttle response. A huge amount of stuff has happened, which I call as below the hood engineering. It’s not apparent but you realise it when you ride it. I think particularly a lot of changes have been done to the Pulsar 150. If you ask me I would say it’s like an all-new engine, which offers performance of a different level altogether,” he told Autocar Professional recently.

The Bajaj Pulsars garnered sales of 36,456 units in January.

Yet another model from the stable of Bajaj Auto, Platina, stood at the eighth rank by fetching sales of 23,963 units last month.

Another reason why January stood out as a good month for HMSI was that Honda’s Dream and CB Unicorn occupied the ninth and tenth ranks respectively. This also marked January as possibly the only month where Honda’s 110cc, 125cc and 150-160cc motorcycle models have featured together in the top 10 bestselling motorcycles’ list.

Notably, the CB Unicorn has marked its entry in the list for the first time in the last 15 months. While Honda’s Dream series garnered sales of 18,794 units, CB Unicorn models sold 18,654 units in January.