It’s about time the Indian market made way for the new entrants in the power bike segment from the Suzuki Motorcycle India (SMIPL) stable. A 100 per cent subsidiary of the Japans Suzuki Motor Corporation, SMIPL recently announced their plan to launch premium powered bikes between 125-175 cc in the country, which would be displayed in the approaching Auto Expo 2008.   

 

The parent company Suzuki Motor Corporation sees India as a potential market and had launched 100-125 cc bikes in the mass market segment under the brand name Heat and Zeus earlier. This time around, the Suzuki Motorcycle India is all geared up to introduce premium-bowered bikes in the country next year. The company also simultaneously plans to increase its scooter production capacity from its Gurgaon plant in Haryana.

 

Currently, the Suzuki Motorcycle India is known to churn out 5,000 scooters each month and the target is to hike up production to 8,000 scooters shortly. It is learnt that nearly 80 per cent of the total scooter sales from the Suzuki Motorcycle India occurs in cash, whereas the present production capacity of the Gurgaon plant is near about 1.7 lakh two-wheelers, which comprises both motorcycles and scooters.

 

The SPIML’s plan to launch premium-powered bikes in the Indian market comes at a time when the sale of two-wheeler in India has dipped. As per a survey, the two-wheeler sales in India showed a negative growth of 8.46 per cent during April-October 2007 in comparison to April-October 2006. Though the sale of mopeds and scooters escalated by 22.35 per cent and 19.57 per cent respectively motorcycles and electric two-wheelers showed a decline.