TVS Motor Company is staging a strong come back in the scooter segment, aided by new launches in the most competitive category. The company, which had been steadily losing market share for three years till 2013-14, has reported improvement in its market share during the first-half of this fiscal as the new product roll-outs seem to be paying off. Two key new launches -- 110cc scooter Jupiter (pitched against Honda’s flagship brand Activa) in September 2013 and Scooty Zest 110cc in August this year, have been fetching strong sales for the company.
TVS Motor has been selling more scooters than Hero, which had overtaken TVS in scooter volumes, over the past three months. It moved to number two position during July-September 2014 in total scooter sales. TVS sold 189,875 units of scooters, while Hero sold 166,552 units. As the sales gap between TVS and Hero has been narrowing, TVS may reach the second slot in overall scooter volumes soon.
Market shareDuring the first half of this fiscal, TVS had a market share of 15.6 per cent and Hero held a share of 16 per cent in scooter market. In a year-ago period, Hero held a share of 20.1 per cent, while TVS had 12.6 per cent.
TVS Motor claims to be offering widest range of scooters straddling all segments of the scooter market with Jupiter targeting the male single user segment, Wego targeting the dual user segment and Scooty Zest, Pep+ and Streak making up for the women single user segment.
Indian scooter market, which is on a strong growth curve, will continue to see a lot of actions with more new launches. Increasing acceptability among urban male customers and growing urbanisation and rise in population of working women have been driving scooter volumes in the country. During the first half of this fiscal, total scooter volumes stood at 2.19 million units, a rise of 32 per cent over sales recorded in a year-ago period. Honda continues to be the leader in Indian scooter market with a share of 55 per cent.
