Bajaj Auto launches third XCD bike

Bajaj Auto on Wednesday launched its third bike based on the ‘XCD’ platform, a 135-cc sports-commuter machine.

Acknowledging that the much-hyped 125-cc motorcycle launched on the same platform last year turned out to be a “strategic mistake”, managing director Rajiv Bajaj said that many features have been incorporated in the new bike after learnings from the 125-cc one. This candid admission by Bajaj, about erring in the positioning of 125-cc bike, comes when Bajaj Auto has seen overall sales plummet over the last several months, with domestic numbers down over 21% to 11,33,005 units in April-December 2008.

Though a robust export growth has mitigated the overall sales decline somewhat, Bajaj has perhaps suffered the most during these months among all two-wheeler makers. On an average, the 125-cc XCD sold 22,000 units a month in Q1 and Q2 of this fiscal but by the December quarter, sales had fallen to half. With the launch of the new 135-cc bike, sales of the older one could also see some cannibalisation.

“The XCD 125 was perhaps not enough like the Pulsar….it did not meet consumer expectations in isolation. We made a strategic mistake with this bike,” Bajaj said. He acknowledged that the new launch is quite likely to eat into sales of the 125-cc motorcycle but together with the Platina 125 (which is also on the XCD platform), the platform should be able to generate 70,000-75,000 unit sales per month from next fiscal. A fourth product based on the same platform is slated for launch around April.

On the company’s overall production decline, S Sridhar, the chief executive officer of the two-wheeler business, said of the 2.2 lakh total installed capacity across three manufacturing plants —Waluj, Pantnagar and Chakan — Bajaj Auto was currently using only 1.6 lakh. And production is expected to remain lower than demand till at least March. The new bike is called Bajaj XCD 135 DTSsi and comes for Rs 43,000 in the kickstart version, Rs 45,000 in the electronic start version and the upper end model is priced at Rs 47,000 (ex-showroom Delhi).

KTM bikes from next year, Kawasaki Ninja 250 in May

Bajaj Auto plans to unveil a bike it has jointly developed with Austrian major KTM next year. Managing director Rajiv Bajaj said that this product, which would be in the ‘125 cc and above’ category, would be completely indigenous and manufactured at the company’s Waluj plant. But the KTM big bikes, ‘Duke’ and ‘RC’, would be assembled in India and not manufactured here.

Bajaj holds just over 25% stake in KTM and the two companies plan to develop and sell India-made bikes across the world. But joint badging is a big no-no, with Rajiv Bajaj asserting that all jointly developed products would be sold under the KTM brand.

On the Kawasaki front, he said the Ninja 250 would be available by May this year and is expected to be priced around Rs 2.5 lakh. Japanese major Kawasaki and Bajaj Auto have a marketing tie-up under which the Indian partner would begin retailing the Kawasaki big bikes this year.