Honda discontinues 125cc CBF Stunner from domestic market

Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) has discontinued its 124.7cc commuter motorcycle model CBF Stunner from the domestic market but continues to produce the bike in a few numbers for shipping abroad.

The company stopped selling this model across the local market from July 2015. However, HMSI has exported 240 units, 158 units and 340 units during July, August and September 2015 respectively.

Even on the export front in the past two quarters of the ongoing fiscal, HMSI’s CBF Stunner has seen a drastic fall at 1,098 units this year as against 4,068 units during H1 FY2014-15.

The model continues to be listed on HMSI’s website with an ex-showroom price of Rs 58,721 for Delhi for its self-start-disc brake-alloy wheels variant.

It can be recalled that HMSI had commercially launched the CBF Stunner in June-July 2008 when Shinji Aoyama was the president and CEO of the Indian subsidiary of the Honda Motor Company, Japan. The CBF Stunner had marked Honda’s efforts to woo the young buyer looking for a different, sporty looking motorcycle that also offered good fuel economy. The model was introduced in the market as Honda’s possibly third motorcycle model, after the 150cc CB Unicorn and the 125cc CB Shine. Both the models had, by then, tasted mild success in the market that was comprehensively dominated by its erstwhile partner, Hero MotoCorp.

Later in May-June 2009, mechanically upgrading the carburettor-fed CBF Stunner with programmed fuel injection technology, HMSI had rolled out another variant (positioned as the top variant) of the model using the existing four-stroke, air-cooled, single-cylinder engine. The CBF Stunner provided decent traction to the company in its category fetching yearly sales of more than one lakh units in its early years.

After the separation of Hero and Honda as two different entities, in January 2012, Hero MotoCorp launched a rebadged Honda CBF Stunner named as Hero Ignitor to cash in on the demand momentum for its class of motorcycles among the young buyers.

While the Honda CB Shine became the best-selling 125cc motorcycle model in the two-wheeler market over years, the Honda CBF Stunner on the other hand, now a seven-year-old model in 2015, saw declining sales and had a few buyers, all thanks to the competition that has multiplied over years.

HMSI, which has made no official announcement about discontinuing this model in the local markets, has confirmed the same to Autocar Professional.

Market statistics clearly point out that earlier this fiscal sales of the CBF Stunner were slowing down. Interestingly, for the Hero Ignitor also, sales have been declining month-on-month. Though industry analysts say that the Hero Ignitor model slightly benefited with Honda discontinuing its CBF Stunner from the local markets in July 2015, they question if the product has reached the end of its lifecycle.

Hero MotoCorp, which does not export the Ignitor, which is the identical twin of Honda’s CBF Stunner, has it listed on its website for an ex-showroom Delhi price tag of Rs 62,500.

Honda’s 149cc CB Trigger is another model that the company has discontinued earlier this year from the domestic markets but continues to make the same for export destinations. The model is still listed on HMSI’s website in three variants with a starting ex-showroom Delhi price tag of Rs 68,667.