Honda’s best-selling scooter in the Indian market, the Activa, lost the top two spots to Hero MotoCorp, securing only the third position in terms of sales
Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) has enjoyed a lot of success in India owing to its automatic scooters, especially the Activa. Honda Activa has been in the Indian market for nearly two decades now, and is one of the bestselling two-wheelers in the country. While it still remains near the top of the leaderboard in terms of sales this year, the company has recorded a huge drop in sales.
In July 2020, Honda managed a total dispatch of 3,21,583 units of two-wheelers overall, which is down 29.32 per cent on a Year-on-Year basis (4,55,000 units in July 2019). Domestic sales stood at 3,09,332 units, which is a 53 per cent growth on Month-on-Month basis (2,02,837 units sold in June 2020).
As for the Activa, it accounted for a majority of the sales, selling 1,18,859 units last month, which is a 51.2 per cent YoY decrease compared to the 2,43,604 units sold in July last year. Honda also registered a negative MoM growth for the Activa, as the company had retailed 1,21,668 units in June 2020, amounting to a marginal 2.31 per cent de-growth.
Yadvinder Singh Guleria, Director of Sales and Marketing, HMSI, was quote saying: “Honda’s sales momentum continues to accelerate in the 3 months since resuming operations – jumping 400% from 54,000 in May to 2 lakh units in June, and now breaching the 3 lakh mark. Intermittent regional lockdowns across India slowed down the retail momentum gained in June as the percentage of operational network dropped to 80% in July.”
One reason for the stagnant MoM sale growth of the Activa could simply be that the company is yet to completely recover from the effects of the lockdown. The fierce competition in the Indian scooter market could also be a reason. TVS and Hero have been giving Honda a tough run for their money for quite a while.
Interestingly, in July 2019, Honda Activa was the best-selling two-wheeler in the Indian market, but in July 2020, it was overtaken by two Hero motorcycles, Splendor and HF Deluxe, with a staggering sale of 2,13,413 and 1,54,142 units, respectively. It would be interesting to see whether Honda can manage to attract more customers in August, or if we’ll see another decline in the company’s two-wheeler sales.