Deviating from 60 percent average, Honda recorded 8 percent lesser market share in the scooter segment in November 2018
Honda has been a huge entity in the Indian two-wheeler space for 18 years. Throughout its history, the Japanese manufacturer has always been up the ranks whether it was with Hero or against them. The Activa has been the holy grail of Honda’s volume sales ever since it went on sale in 2001.
The Activa achieved a massive milestone of two crore sales in India recently with the second half coming in just three years’ time. Cumulatively, Honda breached the four crore two-wheeler sales mark with CB Shine and CB Unicorn being its primary contributors in the motorcycle space.
The above sales numbers do suggest Honda’s reliance on Activa to deliver the huge chunk of volume all along. While Honda took 14 years to garner first two crore customers, a similar feat was reached in just the next 4 years with Activa playing a significant role.
With scooters increasing in popularity and the entry-level premium segment has witnessed more rivals than ever before, Honda certainly faces a steep challenge ahead. In November 2018, the Gurgaon-headquartered company lost as much as 8 percent market share in the scooter division.
At 52 percent market share, it is the lowest for Honda in the last eight years from about 60 percent average. Last month, Honda’s cumulative two-wheeler sales stood at 3,94,246 units, which in comparison was at 8.8 percent YoY de-growth, when it recorded 4,32,124 units in November 2017.
This was at a stark contrast to the industry’s YoY growth of 7.2 percent. Hero MotoCorp did broaden the gap to Honda by selling over 6 lakh units with 2.1 percent sales increase. With Activa’s sales dropped by more than 44,000 units against October 2018 to trigger the lowest market share in 8 years, it begs the question of whether relying on a single product would do them justice on a long term or not.
Honda’s India division has a profound presence as a major volume sales accomplisher for the parent group over the years. The local production capacity was announced to increase by 6 lakh units with addition of a new plant, as the brand targets 70-lakh unit production per annum by 2020.