The Hindu : Business : Hero Honda sales rise

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 02, 2005

Business

Business

Hero Honda sales rise

By K. T. Jagannathan

CHENNAI, FEB. 1. Two-wheeler majors have turned out strong sales numbers for January as compared to the same month last year. But the sequential numbers are down compared to December 2004.

The first month of the year 2005 saw Hero Honda assert its leadership position in the two-wheeler market by posting strong sales number. January also saw its Chairman, Brijmohan Lall, landing the coveted Padma Bushan Award. The year could not have commenced any better for this group. Hero Honda said it had sold 2.30 lakh motorcycles during January as compared to 1.96 lakh units during January 2004, an increase of 17.5 per cent. In December 2004, the company had sold 2.31 lakh vehicles.

Cumulative sales during April-January increased to 21.66 lakh motorcycles, up from 16.73 lakh motorcycles during the corresponding period last year. This reflected a growth of 29.4 per cent. Not surprisingly, the company came out with a celebration offer of Rs. 1,001 for all its models from January 14. The celebration is for Hero Honda achieving top global two-wheeler company status for the fourth year in a row.

Bajaj to expand capacity

<167,5p,1>The Pune-based Bajaj Auto said that it had sold 1.32 lakh motorcycles during January, up from 84,500 units in January 2004. In December 2004, it sold 1.44 lakh motorcycles. Overall, it sold 1.42 lakh two-wheelers in January this year, up from 1.07 lakh units in January 2004. In December 2004, the company sold 1.54 lakh two-wheelers.

Bajaj was also proposing to up its capacity to two lakh motorcycles a month by July this year.

TVS makes

a StaR pitch

<167,4p,1>Nearer home, the Chennai-based TVS Motor Company reported that its total two-wheeler sales in the month under review clocked 94,467 units as compared to 98,020 units in the same period last year. Total motorcycle sales in January stood at 55,639 units against 59,844 units recorded during the same period last year. However, during the same period, four-stroke motorcycles recorded a growth of 22 per cent.

The January numbers, however, were down from December 2004 figures.

The company had sold 96,866 two-wheelers in December 2004. It had sold 63,496 motorcycles in December 2004.

TVS StaR, further to its launch in North India in the third quarter of 2004, was launched in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh last month.

The company, a release said, was ramping up the production of TVS StaR for its availability across the country.

This would increase the company's presence in the economy segment in the coming months. The company had already kicked off an advertising campaign to promote TVS StaR and would soon launch a new campaign for Victor GLX, featuring cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar.

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