Two-Wheeler Sales Skid In September

September marked yet another month of downfall in the sales volume of two-wheelers. The market condition has been subdued because of a lethargic demand for automobiles overall. Relative to overall automobile sales, two-wheelers had been faring better but this has changed over the last two months. Hopes are now lying on a revival in sales volumes starting October on account of the festive season.

Monthly YoY Sales Growth For Two-Wheelers

Hero Motors has been facing negative growth in sales volume since the last three months. The company has seen a consistently downward moving trend over this financial year. This was marked with the worst month for the two-wheeler leader with a decline of 26.35 per cent in sales volume in September 2012 as compared to September 2011. What also blew Hero recently was the fact that Bajaj’s Discover put rival Hero Splendor off the position of the world’s largest-selling motorcycle. While Hero sold 1,21,018 units of the Splendor in September 2012, Bajaj sold 1,22,968 units of the Discover.

While domestic trends remain against Hero, the company has lately been taking bold steps towards working on exports. Since the company was restricted to exporting vehicles in countries that Honda operated in, Hero’s alliance with Honda had for long restricted export sales from making a substantial component of its total sales. Recently, Hero launched products in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka using its brand image of Hero and is now also working its strategy out for other high potential markets like Africa and Latin America. However, the benefits of this move would be seen in the long run.

Bajaj, which had been relatively consistent in sales as compared to its peers, too saw a decline in sales volume of as much as 13.77 per cent in September 2012 as compared to September 2011. The company saw a decline on both domestic and international front. In the last few months, exports had been strong and had supported the growth of the company but that too changed for September 2012.

The story for TVS and Honda has been amazingly polarised over FY13. While TVS has been consistently underperforming, Honda has been growing at a tremendous rate. In September 2012, while TVS de-grew by 22.46 per cent, Honda grew by 36.13 per cent as compared to the corresponding month in the previous year. While Honda grew at an around 50 per cent rate in all the months till July 2012, being highly unaffected by industry trends, the last two months have shown a slowdown. This has brought its growth rate down to the range of 36.13 per cent and 38.65 per cent, making the word slowdown sound rather incorrect.

Smaller players like Suzuki and Yamaha though saw high growth figures because of a smaller base and on account of model-specific success that worked in the case of Suzuki with the triumph of Hayate and Access. In September 2012, Suzuki and Yamaha grew YoY at 31.53 per cent and 12.24 per cent respectively.

Clearly, September 2012 has been a gloomy month for two-wheeler sales, adding to the woes of the entire automobile industry. The entire sector is now eagerly waiting for the much-awaited festive season for a revival. Whether it stands up against the macro headwinds would be clear only when we have a look at the sales data October onwards.

Monthly YoY Sales Growth For Two-Wheelers (Hero and Bajaj)

Monthly YoY Sales Growth For Two-Wheelers (Honda and TVS)