The new Activa is powered by a 110cc engine and Honda claims it provides 15% higher fuel efficiency because of the new engine and use of advanced technologies.
With Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India’s (HMSI) decision to phase out the ‘Eterno’, it’s curtains for geared scooters. HMSI, which is the undisputed market leader in overall scooters, held 90% share of the geared segment with sales of about 40,000 units of the Eterno on an annual basis. The only other manufacturer in this segment is LML, which makes a small number of geared scooters.
HMSI decided to stop production of the Eterno since it wants to push the refurbished ‘Activa’, which is by far the largest variomatic (ungeared) scooter brand in the country. HMSI is eyeing incremental sales of 75,000 units from the refurbished Activa to close 2009-10 at 5.5 lakh units.
Shinji Aoyama, president and chief executive officer, HMSI, said on Friday, “We will stop producing Eterno. We will not stay in this segment (geared scooter). Eterno will be phased out.”
The new Activa is powered by a 110cc engine (against 100cc earlier) and the company claims it would provide 15% higher fuel efficiency because of the new engine and use of advanced technologies. It is priced at Rs 39,800 (ex-showroom Delhi) and Rs 41,300 in Pune. Besides Activa, HMSI also sells Aviator and Dio gearless scooters. Scooters account for 63% of the company’s topline.
Powered by the healthy growth in scooters, HMSI is eyeing 18% overall sales growth next fiscal. The company has also managed to post 17% sales increase this fiscal when the overall market has grown by just 5%, strengthened by robust scooter and bike sales.
Besides HMSI, sister company Hero Honda Motors, Bajaj Auto, Suzuki Motorcycle India and TVS Motor are also present in the scooters business but HMSI commands over 58% market share.
Then, the Mahindra Kinetic venture is also expected to make its presence felt in the scooters segment once it launches.
Hero Honda is also looking to expand its offerings in the scooter segment — it currently has only one product called ‘Pleasure’.
Having witnessed double digit growth throughout this fiscal with Pleasure, the company is planning to launch more scooter variants soon, said managing director Pawan Munjal.
TVS is another strong player in scooters, with its popular scooterette brand ‘Scooty’, among other models.
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