The Indian two-wheeler industry, which is finally seeing demand returning albeit much lesser than that in the pre-Covid FY2019, also has the scooter market to thank for its improving fortunes. Of the total wholesales of 66,63,265 units (up 33%) in April-August 2022, scooters comprise 33% or 21,91,208 units (up 53%). A year ago, the scooter share was 28.5%, which translates into an increase of 4.5 percentage points.

Motorcycles with 42,92,050 units (up 26%) accounts for 64.41% of the total two-wheeler market. Compared to April-August 2021, motorcycles’ share has reduced – it was nearly 68% with 34,03,323 units out of total two-wheeler industry sales of 50,12,488 units.

A close look at the SIAM wholesales numbers for nine scooter OEMs in the first five months of FY2023 reveals some interesting facts. Of the top four OEMs with six-figure tallies to their credit, TVS Motor Co has registered strong 89% YoY growth, followed by market leader Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India with 53% YoY and Suzuki with 13%. And, seen from the market share perspective, TVS has also made the maximum gains: a nearly 4.5 percentage point increase to 23.88% from 19.40% a year ago.

TVS’s 523,458 scooters in April-August 2022 is also its best-ever total recorded for the first five months of a fiscal over a decade (see data table below). The company had recorded half-a-million-unit sales before, in April-August 2018 and had a scooter market share of 16.45%.

The importance of scooters to TVS overall market standing can be gleaned from the fact that of the total 10,06,372 two-wheelers sold in the first five months of FY2023, scooters account for 52%, followed by motorcycles (302,907 units / 30% share) and mopeds (180,007 units / 17.88 % share).

While TVS’ flagship, the Jupiter, available in 110cc and 125cc versions, remains its growth driver, the snazzy NTorq, which was launched in February 2018, has also given the company a new charge in the scooter market and the past few years have seen TVS introduce a number of variants. On September 12, TVS introduced a marine blue colour on the 125cc NTorq Race Edition. And, the iQube, TVS’ sole electric scooter, is also gradually delivering the goods.

In May this year, TVS Motor launched the new iQube electric scooter with 140km range. Between April-August 2022, the iQube has gone home to 19,446 buyers. Since launch in January 2020, the iQube has till end-August 2022 sold a total of 31,342 units.

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