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25th November 2018, 21:42 | #16 | |
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Quote:
I guess those who were indeed after the emotional/retro/what-not value, would have anyway not bought it, no matter the campaign. And those sitting on the fence, those who are annoyed by the noisy metallic snobbery, wanting better kit and equipment but not having many options, and those looking for value in the segment, would definitely see the point and get swayed by it. So why is it marketing campaign's failure? In fact, the real competition, like the CBR250R or the Mojo or even the Dukes, which can be considered successful, don't get the volumes that Dominar is seeing now. | |
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25th November 2018, 22:43 | #17 | ||||||
Team-BHP Support | Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Quote:
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Given their low numbers, Kawasaki seems to be prioritizing products each month - and now they seem to have made a strategy of it for niche products too - like the ZX6R and the Versys 1000. Quote:
I feel the 500s will slowly fade away now - with the 650s completely bettering it in every department except for the macho sound. I agree with him too. Pulsar CS400 which excited the nation so much, when launched as the Dominar and at a brilliant price tag - didn't capture the nation's interest? I think they got the positioning completely wrong then - and chasing Enfield later was the worst idea they could think of! Last edited by CrAzY dRiVeR : 25th November 2018 at 22:53. | ||||||
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25th November 2018, 23:37 | #18 | ||||
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Quote:
Hahaha, deal! Quote:
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Kawasaki just might have convinced all the litre class buyers to plonk down their money on the very affordable ZX10R and cleaned out the market for a while. I guess the only potential buyers left would be those who definitely didnt want a Kawasaki and are happy with Hondas CBR1000RR (affordable service), Suzuki GSX1000R (VVT) and Yamaha R1. Or maybe even a Street Triple RS. I agree this will happen to an extent but the Classic 500 still seems to be doing decently well. The Bullet 500 buyer is an altogether different demographic as well and the bike seems to be steadily chugging along. From a business perspective, I wonder how profitable the 650s will be per bike as compared to say a Classic 350 / 500 where the investments in R&D (stop snickering all of you!) would have been paid off long ago and its all straight profits at this point in time. | ||||
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26th November 2018, 09:05 | #19 | ||
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Quote:
As for chasing enfield, why shouldn't they? That's the biggest volume driver, in Dominar's price segment, selling mostly on sentimental value, despite lack of essentials like ABS and other goodies, that Dominar is offering. Quote:
Those ads were the reason I noticed Dominar in the first place. They hit the proverbial nail on its head. Showing shortcomings of a competitor for highlighting strengths of yours, in a light, tongue-in-cheek way, is hardly a bad marketing campaign. Much of the responses I have come across, are on the lines of "The enfields may have all those flaws, but how can Bajaj make fun of it!?". Blind fanboyism and cult/clan worships shouldn't decide what's right and wrong or good and bad. Objectivity should. I, for one, will definitely like to see many more such ad campaigns by other manufacturers as well. | ||
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26th November 2018, 10:09 | #20 | |
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Quote:
The other ads for the Dominar aren't exactly brilliant either, nor do they seem to make any sense. For example, twitter vs Dominar - what was that all about? Tinder vs Dominar? Seriously?? The Marketing department at Bajaj seems like it is run by someone with no understanding of bikes or enthusiasts. | |
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26th November 2018, 11:14 | #21 | |||
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Quote:
Lets look at the numbers keeping aside Royal Enfield offerings for now. The Dominar had 659 dispatches. Within the Bajaj / KTM stable, the other big bikes that someone might consider are the P220 (9970 units), Duke 250 (620 units). For comparisons sake, the D390 did 553 units. Honda's ageing but competent and sensible CBR250 did 258 units. The Mojo did 12 units. The very capable Apache RR310 did 425. The FZ25 did 2340. UM motorcycles did a combined 264 as well. To see how well the Dominar did compared to its competitors that didnt sell on sentimental value, the list of bikes in decreasing order of monthly dispatches is 1. P220 2. FZ25 3. Dominar 4. Duke 250 5. Duke 390 6. Apache RR310 7. UM Motorcycles (combined) 8. CBR250 9. Mojo Now even if you discount the P220 as not a direct competitor and eliminate it from the list, that makes the FZ25 the number 1 choice in the segment. Back to numbers, the FZ25 did 2340 dispatches. The Dominar did 659. It isnt even close. Now bring in some of the segment favourite(s) that sell on sentimental value as per your post. - Classic 350 (46,148) - Bullet 350 (11,451) - Thunderbird 350 (7,129) - Electra (2,629) - Classic 500 (1,238) - Himalayan (1,089) Obviously the Dominar's big target was the Classic 350. But Royal Enfield dispatched more than twice as many Classic 350s per day (1538) than what Bajaj did with the Dominar for the month (659). I believe its safe to say that the Dominar is not doing fine in terms of sales. Quote:
But when the Dominar sales werent up to the mark, they gunned for the same traditional tourers mark (of which the Avenger was positioned as being equal) and showed that the Dominar was better. So while burying the Royal Enfields, they buried their own product the Avenger as well. Its so simple, Im not sure why you find my logic to be twisted. Where the product manager and the marketing team failed is in their knee jerk reactions to changing the positioning of the Dominar so often. Quote:
Me too. If it translates into better sales that is . | |||
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26th November 2018, 11:37 | #22 |
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Pardon me but are Dominar and Enfield bikes in the same class? Visually these are miles apart and an Enfield buyer won't consider Dominar styling. Is my assessment wrong here? So gunning for Enfield in their ads smacked of the wrong strategy to me. Can we safely draw few parallels from the car market, here, or do bikes operate specifically? |
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26th November 2018, 11:56 | #23 | |||
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Quote:
Avenger 220 ex-showroom price: ~95k FZ25 ex-showroom price: ~120k Dominar ABS ex-showroom price: ~170k In a price sensitive market like India, are you sure this is apples to apples comparison at all? In the same price segment, Dominar was doing 1k+ till last month, that's more than all other competent bikes in the segment. As for the recent slump in numbers, could that be because of end-of-year, or the rumours about the new updated dominar being around the corner? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Quote:
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And by the way, being an Avenger 220 owner myself, I can declare myself that Dominar is hands down better than Avenger on all fronts. It has FI, it has ABS, it handles better, it has wayyy more power: all of which I would be seeking while looking for an upgrade. It costs almost double after all, for all those features. Why would any Avenger owner take offence at it, is beyond me. The logic sounds as contrived as it could get. In fact sounds more like a weak attempt at turning it into an Avenger vs Dominar, instead of Enfield vs Dominar. It was always the later, and never the former. Who knows what it would be without the ad campaign? Mojo sure didn't have a similar ad campaign, where is it now? RR310 didn't it's still trying to pickup. Dukes didn't, they have been sub 1K for sometime now? We all can just guess what it would be for Dominar. I would like to say 'kudos!' to Bajaj for at least trying to boldly disrupt the sentimental price segment. | |||
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26th November 2018, 12:04 | #24 |
Team-BHP Support | Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis |
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26th November 2018, 12:12 | #25 |
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis I did get a chance to ride the Dominor on the highway once, for the segment Bajaj was targeting [CL350], they chose the wrong engine [D390 engine], that engine has no low end punch at all, most of the RE[CL350] guys who test rode the bike had only one thing to complain, where is the low end pull? The numbers are good on paper for the Dominor but it just doesn't show up well on road. I feel they should have built an engine based on the Bajaj's own V15 engine, which has lots of low end torque, a 350CC variant of it would have been superb. Apart from the engine, their marketing was all wrong for the product. |
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26th November 2018, 12:40 | #26 | ||||
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis
They are targetting the same price segment though their respective strengths are very different. Thats why Bajaj should have sold the Dominar on what it did well rather than saying what the competition did poorly. Quote:
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Back to the main point, I doubt Rajiv Bajaj told his engineering team, guys with the Bajaj Dominar / CS400, we want to be #1 in the competent bikes segment above Rs 1 lac Quote:
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26th November 2018, 14:18 | #27 |
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis |
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26th November 2018, 14:43 | #28 | |
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Quote:
It has been proven time and again that for a new business, the lowest cost of acquisition of a new customer is through repeat customers. Thats why companies want you to upgrade within their portfolio. Look at Maruti. You start with the 800 / Alto, upgrade to the Swift and then upgrade to the Ciaz. Same with KTMs, start with the 200 and work you way up to the 390 and / or the upcoming 790. Same with Royal Enfield and the 650 twins. You dont see any of them taking a tongue in cheek dig at buyers of their own products. It might be difficult to convince customers (not you, Im talking about others who might take offence to the ad after buying an Avenger) to upgrade within the family if you make fun of them after they have spent their hard earned money buying a lower priced offering. Last edited by neil.jericho : 26th November 2018 at 14:44. | |
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26th November 2018, 14:56 | #29 |
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis I guess this is the first time the Jupiter crossed 1L mark. Ntorq too seems to be gaining traction slowly, am expecting it to break into top 20 next month. I see lots of them in Bangalore these days. TVS sure has made some good strides in the gearless scooter segment. Would be interesting to see how Jawa plan pans out for Mahindra. They do look promising. I mean that's the closest competitior I can see currently to the omnipresent RE 350s. Last edited by SoumenD : 26th November 2018 at 15:01. |
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26th November 2018, 16:25 | #30 |
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| Re: October 2018: Two Wheeler Sales Figures & Analysis Thanks Crazy Driver for doing this analysis now on consistent basis. Hoping to see this every month in future. Few observations from my side - - Pulsar 150 has gained traction in the last 2 months which was almost beaten by RE CL350 few months back. These 60K+ levels are last seen 2011-2013 periods. - Good 2 months for FZ series too, which has broken the 20K mark and also the highest month in a long time - the last time it was sold more was way back in Sep 2014 with 26,037 units. - Hornet and X-Blade combined to sell only 12,484 units which was comfortably achieved by Hornet alone last year. Did Honda diluted Hornet by launching X-Blade? - RE CL350 seems to have settled around 45K-50K levels after selling over 50K for few months at the start of this year. - Thunderbird 350 class have picked up steam in the last 4-5 months after the launch of 350X series, however it is exactly opposite in case of 500 class. - Also, the Classic 500 series used to sell more than 2500 units earlier and has fallen to less than 2K units in the last 3 months. - FZ25 hits a high this year while Dominar hits the lifetime low (barring the launch month of Dec '16) and Himalayan sales are in the upward trend. Apache RR310, CBR 250R, Duke 390 & 250 are trundling along with average volumes. - Pulsar 220 almost close to 10K and hits the high for this year, while Avenger 220 has taken a nosedive after the new facelift this year - the launch of Avenger 180 is also clearly not helping. And with Intruder selling less than 1000 units in the last 4 months, where are those buyers of this cruiser genre gone? - Jawa launch may not have an impact RE Classic series, but definitely UML will be dead, if not already, with their overpriced bikes. - Duke 200 has crossed the 3K units for the first time and hits the lifetime high this month whose sales have been uptick in the last few months. - R15 is really flying high in the last few months after the launch of V3.0, which once was selling just 3K units and is now consistently seeing above 10K levels. It has sold more than the cheaper bikes like Hornet, X-Blade and Gixxer. - Seems Xtreme 200 off to a good start with the sales gathered momemtum after the launch and is growing ever since. - Shine has sold more than the cheaper Passion series and even the Hero's own Glamour series are close to Passion numbers. The 125cc segment is truly increasing and may become the new 100cc segment. - CT 100 has soared sky high ever since the price reduction and the sales to be increasing by every passing month and nearing the lakh mark. Platina too suddenly picked up steam in the last 2 months and both along with Pulsar series have pushed Bajaj sales higher. - Jupiter has crossed the lakh mark for the first time since launch and is seriously becoming a contender to the top placed Activa. The ride quality and the plastic quality of Jupiter is really top notch compared to Activa. - Ntorq has beaten Grazia and the sales of both are exactly in the opposite direction - Ntorq is going higher and higher and Grazia has fallen lower and lower. The launch of Burgman Street has only made the life of Grazia misery with the former too beating the latter. Not sure what will be the impact of the new launch in the segment - Hero Destini. - Vespa volumes are increasing and has hit a high of more than 6K units for the first time and Piaggio must be happy to see SR 150 too gaining momentum again. |
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