The scooter market in India is seeing tepid times and in the first seven months of FY2022 has seen just about 5% year-on-year growth. While Honda and TVS Motor Co remain the top two players in this segment, Suzuki has made the maximum gains in the April-October 2021 period.
Of the total 23,95,104 scooters sold (up 5%), Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) accounted for 12,15,023 units or 50.73% of total sales in India. Its market share has dipped marginally from 51.90% a year ago. In FY2021, HMSi had sold a total of 23,28,778 scooters, down 26% YoY (FY2020: 31,47,919). The popular Activa, India;;s best-selling scooter remains the mainstay of the company.
TVS Motor Co, with sales of 479,989 units (up 4%) in the first seven months of the ongoing fiscal year, has a 20% share of the market. The TVS Jupiter is its lead sales driver followed by the NTorq. Last month, the company launched the new Jupiter 125 at Rs 73,400, hoping to make inroads into the expanding 125cc scooter market.
Suzuki Motorcycle India, in what is a sterling performance, sold all of 337,817 units, up a handsome 48%, its numbers increasing by 110,096 units from a year ago (April-October 2020: 227,721). Look at the data table below and this volume increase dwarfs both Honda and TVS’ combined 51,171 unit increase. Clearly, Suzuki is doing something right in a difficult market. This strong performance, not surprisingly, sees Suzuki increase its scooter market share by four percentage points to 14% and is the OEM which has made the maximum market share gains in the period under review. The Access 125 is the company's best-seller.
In the April-October 2021 period, the Access 125 clocked 49% YoY growth with sales of 282,000 units (April-October 2020: 189,222), which accounted for 83% of Suzuki's total sales in the first seven months of FY2022.