A Breather for Hero

For a brief moment in 2024, India's two-wheeler pecking order looked vulnerable.
Hero MotoCorp, the industry's perennial volume leader, watched its lead over former partner Honda shrink at an alarming pace. The Japanese major was firing on multiple cylinders—scooters, executive motorcycles, premium bikes—and the gap that once seemed insurmountable had more than halved, from 13.8 lakh units in 2023 to 6.88 lakh by year-end.

Honda's global management told investors in Japan that the number one position was within sight. For a month or two, it even edged ahead of Hero in monthly volumes, just as the Gurugram-based company was ...