Bajaj Auto, which acquired a 49% stake in Austria’s sport motorcycle maker KTM 10 years ago, is now charting a roadmap for the venture for the next decade.
Rajiv Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Auto had a discussion over the road ahead with Stefan Pierre, the chief executive officer of KTM.
“Stefan was here yesterday and we spent the whole day together discussing what has to be done in the next ten years”, said Mr Bajaj while launching KTM bike on Thursday.
Apart from increasing the product portfolio which will come with higher price tags, KTM has now entered Indonesia to sell KTM bikes.
KTM launched MY17 (model year) KTM RC 390, priced at Rs 225,300 (Ex-Delhi) and KTM RC 200, priced at Rs 171, 740(Ex-Delhi) on Thursday.
Mr Bajaj said there could be 500-800cc bikes in the future from the KTM stable, if both the companies agree.
About entering Indonesia market, Mr Bajaj said between April 2017 and March 2018, the company plans to sell 5000 to 10000 bikes.
Bajaj Auto had entered Indonesian market earlier too, piggybacking on Kawasaki, but it was not a successful outing.
“Earlier, we were selling Bajaj bikes from Kawasaki outlets, but now we will sell KTM bikes from KTM outlets,” Mr Bajaj said while answering why he is hopeful that this time he expects success.
Launched in 2012, KTM has become one of the fastest growing sports motorcycle brand with over 1,00,000 bikes hitting Indian roads.
The company said the growth has been spurred by a large network of 325 exclusive KTM showrooms which will grow to 450 in about a year time.
Amit Nandi, president, probiking, Bajaj Auto, while said the recent demonetization exercise impacted sales in November and December, but the situation has improved in January.
“November and December was slow but January was a lot better though it was not what we had expected. We hope things to ease out over the next 2-3 months,” Mr Nandi said.
