KTM Duke 390 sales dropped by 73 per cent in January and the reason could be the introduction of the 650 Twins, which is priced aggressively
KTM sold 279 units of Duke 390 in January compared to 1041 units in same month last year and registered 73 per drop in sales. The first half of 2018 was really good for the Duke 390 but sales began to drop sharply in the second half. The overall sales of KTM in January has come down as most of the products registered negative growth.
One of the reasons for the massive drop of Duke 390 sales and other models in the performance bike segment could be the launch of new Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650 as both these bikes are priced very aggressively as they are the most affordable twin-cylinder 600 cc bikes in the country.
When compared to December 2018 sales of the Duke 390 has improved slightly last month. TVS Apache RR 390 also posted negative growth in January along with most of the other models in this price range except new RE 650 Twins as the retro-bike manufacturer has managed to sell more than 1000 units of them last month.
Even though 650 Twins are targeted at different customers and it misses out on so many modern features like LED headlamps & tail lamps, fully digital instrument cluster with Bluetooth connectivity, ride by wire and more compared to Duke 390. The 650 Twins has the cubic capacity advantage but it can’t match the on-road performance and handling of Duke 390.
The competition for the KTM Duke 390 is going to heat up in coming months as Honda has also joined the performance bike segment with CB300R earlier this month and it is priced aggressively at Rs. 2.41 lakh. The Japanese manufacturer has already received more than 400 bookings for the CB300R model in India.
KTM 390 Duke is powered by 373.2 cc single cylinder engine with liquid cooling and fuel injection produces 43.5 bhp of power at 9,000 rpm and 37 Nm of torque at 7,000 rpm. This engine is mated to 6-speed gearbox and slipper clutch (which is available in 650 Twins also). The braking duties are handled by 320 mm disc at front and 230 mm disc at the rear.