Classic 500 Discontinued
India has always been the first priority for the Chennai based two-wheeler manufacturer, Royal Enfield. RE is developing their upcoming products keeping the Indian market and conditions in mind. In order to boost their domestic sales, RE is also planning to expand their reach in the rural market of the country by inaugurating new studio outlets.
These studio outlets will be opened in rural areas and would have a 225 sq.ft of retail space and 275 sq.ft of workshop space. The company also has plans to open 80 regular-format stores in 2019. Royal Enfield currently has a total of 825 stores in India while their global outlet numbers stand at 42.
Mr. Lalit Malik, chief financial officer, Eicher Motors, said that the studio outlets will be one-sixth of the size of a typical Royal Enfield showrooms that we usually find in the metro cities. The studio outlets won’t sell more than 12-20 bikes per month. They are hopeful that they will touch 1,100 towns with the help of 1,350 stores within this year.
The renowned two-wheeler manufacturer has never tried to enter the rural market but now wants to concentrate on the unexplored markets of India as well with these dedicated studio outlets. The RE officials are hopeful that these studio outlets will help boost sales.
Like we already mentioned above the studio outlets are the one-sixth size of the original stores which will also help keep the operational cost in check. That said, the domestic sales of Royal Enfield have witnessed a sharp decline since Jawa motorcycles made a comeback last year. The sales numbers of RE went southwards for the sixth consecutive month this year.
On the other hand, they have also seen an improvement in the exports and all the credit go to the recently introduced 650 twins. The company is also working on its BS-VI compliant models currently. The test mules of these upcoming motorcycles were also spotted on many occasions recently as well.
