Last November, the gap between Royal Enfield and Yamaha was around 15,000 units, while this November it is just around 5,000 units
November has been a very good month for two-wheeler manufacturers as most of them registered positive growth. The fight for the fifth position between Royal Enfield and Yamaha is heating up as the Japanese manufacturer is inching closer to take the position from the Enfield maker. Yamaha India sold 60,116 units in November 2018 compared to 52,455 units same month last year.
The Year-on-Year growth is at 14.6 per cent while Royal Enfield is one of the few manufacturers to register negative growth as sales went down as the company sold 65,026 units in November but same month last year they managed to sell 67,776 units and posted 4.1 per cent negative growth, which is the lowest in the segment.
The gap between Royal Enfield and Yamaha is coming down each month as the latter is just 4910 units behind last month. In November 2017, the difference between both manufacturers were around 15,000 units and the only major launch for Yamaha this year was the introduction of the much awaited new generation R15 Version 3.0.
While RE introduced new variants along with ABS update for its entire portfolio but the most important launch was new Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650. These bikes are manufactured in India, while helped the company to price them aggressively and they are the cheapest twin-cylinder bike currently available in the country.
We could see the impact of these motorcycles on sales in the coming months. The market share of RE is 4 per cent while Yamaha is at 3.7 per cent. The scooter models of Yamaha are doing really well along with FZ series, which helped the company to reduce the gap and we are expecting the positive momentum to continue.
Yamaha is expected to introduce ABS for its performance motorcycles as the deadline is April 2019 and the recently launched Moto GP edition of R15 Version 3.0 has been very well received by the loyal fans. The company is currently working on Bluetooth connectivity for the instrument cluster and it is expected to be introduced with the new FZ series.