Honda looks to accelerate scooter sales with refreshed Activa-i

Attempting to further boost its scooter sales under its hugely popular Activa brand, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) today rolled out the 2016 edition of its Activa-i model.

The Activa-i models, which are seen as Honda’s shot at tapping the ever-increasing population of female riders under the Activa brand, will now come with three new vibrant colour options. Available in two variants (standard and deluxe), the more affordable standard variant now gets yellow and blue colour options, and will also be sold in white and black colour choices.

The company has also added red as the new colour option for the model’s deluxe variant, which was already available in white and purple colours with floral graphics.

Commenting on the refreshed variants, YS Guleria, senior vice-president, sales & marketing, HMSI, said: “In line with our strategy to surprise our customers by adding freshness to our products regularly, the 2016 Activa-i is Honda’s seventh new model of 2016. With this, we are confident of driving rapid scooterisation of two-wheeler industry.”

The Activa-i variants are powered by Honda’s proven and reliable single-cylinder, four-stroke, air-cooled 110cc engine with patented HET technology. The engine generates a peak power output of 8bhp and a maximum torque of 8.74Nm.

Talking to Autocar Professional a few months ago about the need to tap the increasing base of female scooter commuter population, Guleria had said: “Having sold scooters for over one-and-a-half decade, we can clearly see an increasing trend of females buying scooters. As leaders in this segment, it made sense for us to have a product in our range which can exclusively cater to the requirements (design, feel) of our female customers. The registration database of our user profiles reveals that around 25 percent of females are getting the scooters listed in their names. Many a time, the scooters are not bought in their name due to loan formalities or other factors. So we see that the actual usage of scooters is higher than 25 percent. We estimate that around 30-35 percent of overall scooter riders on road today (in India) are females. Close to 75,000 female buyers are being added to the Honda family every month.”

Introducing vibrant colours on the Activa-i can also be understood as Honda’s intent to cater to the growing community of young urban scooter buyers that are increasingly opting for models with more trendy design language and bright colour options. Yamaha’s Fascino and Vespa’s colourful models are understood as the most popularly perceived models in the scooter market in that context.

Also earlier this month, HMSI had rolled out its popular Dio scooter with style upgrades at no additional cost.

According to the company website, the standard and deluxe variants of Activa i will come with price tags of Rs 50,255 and Rs 50,769 (ex-showroom, Mumbai) respectively.

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