Royal Enfield records highest-ever sales milestone in March 2016

Royal Enfield, a unit of Eicher Motors, has just announced its monthly sales for March 2016. Recording a milestone in its history, the company has now crossed the monthly sales of 50,000 unit mark last month.

Royal Enfield reported total domestic sales of 50,059 units during March 2016 as against sales of 32,854 units in March 2015, thereby registering a year-on-year (YoY) growth of 52.37 percent in the domestic market. It can be noted that the company had sold of close to 50,000 units for the 12-month period of 2010, which underlines the surge in the demand of the Royal Enfield motorcycles over the last half a decade.

It has also recorded growth in its exports, which stood at 1,261 units last month, up by 52.85 percent. It had exported 825 units in March 2015. The company’s total sales including exports stood at a healthy 51,321 units during March 2016 – its highest-ever sales in a month.

Commenting on his company’s achievement, Rudratej Singh, president, Royal Enfield said: “Reaching sales of over 50,000 motorcycles in a single month is a significant milestone for Royal Enfield. We approximately manufactured a similar number of motorcycles in 2010 (whole year) that goes on to show our focus and hard work that we have put in all these years. Royal Enfield also has been expanding its production commensurately to meet its customer’s expectations to own and ride our motorcycles at the soonest. Royal Enfield’s simple yet evocative motorcycles have been aspirational yet accessible that provides a pure motorcycling experience to our customers. This experience has created strong demand for our motorcycles that continues to grow our order books.”

Royal Enfield, which has been following calendar years as its financial years and is now converting into the conventional financial year format of April-March starting today (1 April 2016 – 31 March 2017), has also clocked impressive YoY growth for the last 15 months (January 2015 – March 2016).

According to the company, it sold a total of 589,293 units during the said 15-month period as against 386,872 units sold between January 2014-March 2015. This outlines the company’s handsome growth pattern of 52.32 percent YoY.

The company, which has its 346cc models (Classic 350, Bullet 350 Twinspark and Bullet Electra Twinspark – in that order) as its top sellers in the domestic market through the year, is clearly seen to be on a dream run with its linear month-on-month growth pattern.

On the export front, Royal Enfield’s top sellers for the last 15-month period were Bullet Classic 500, Classic 500, Continental GT and the Classic 350, among other models.

The company is estimated to garner decent returns (via bookings) on its recently launched adventure motorcycle, single-cylinder, 411cc Himalayan. While with the new purpose-built model, it has opened an all-new category in the Indian motorcycle market, the company is also reported to be working upon an upcoming range of high-performance, highway-worthy motorcycles for export markets.

Talking to Autocar Professional recently, Siddhartha Lal, MD and CEO, Eicher Motors, had said: “There are a lot of things we need to do, which would be on the products and some off the products. Clearly, while we have had some success in these markets (export) as quirky, vintage, old-school motorcycles, these are not understood as highway-worthy motorcycles in those markets. This I believe is the current position. In the future, some of our motorcycles, let’s say the existing style of motorcycles, which are known for being underpowered, will be the city models. I can understand why people might not like to ride a Classic 500 as a long-distance tourer in the USA. Therefore, we look to reposition these motorcycles, which are referred to as slower bikes as city motorcycles. Then, we will have a new range of motorcycles that we will be coming out with. These will be higher performance, not superfast, but certainly proper highway-worthy models for the established, developed markets.”

Industry analysts and experts, who have been keenly watching the company over many years, say that Royal Enfield’s upcoming products will largely decide the future prospects and the continuity of its growth in the domestic as well as the export markets.

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