Yamaha has made a healthy increment in sales thanks to the new R3 while figures for Suzuki, Kawasaki and Harley have increased sharply in September.
The festive season is kind to manufacturers and has managed to leave a mark in the premium bike range this September. Save for Honda, all manufacturers saw sales escalate last month for most offerings with a significant rise in numbers. Starting with niche player Royal Enfield, sales are steady for the automaker with the Classic 350 being its most popular offering with 24,486 units sold. The Bullet 350 was the next best seller with 6040 units sold while the Bullet Electra 350 is a contributor with 5364 units sold. Only the Thunderbird 500 and Bullet 500 saw a marginal decrease in numbers over August 2015.
Triumph has been quick to make a mark in the country since its arrival in late 2013 and garnered a cumulative 101 units sales in September. The automaker saw volumes rise by 36 percent with the entry-level Bonneville and Tiger 800 XR series being the best sellers. The Triumph Daytona, Bonneville T100 and Thunderbird Storm witnessed incremental numbers as well. Honda wasn’t so fortunate as the new CBR650F saw volumes drop to 21 units from 26 unit in August 2015, but sales for the Gold Wing are steadily rising with 5 units moving out last month.
KTM keeps thriving on the very capable Duke and RC twins which cumulatively sold 3166 units last month. On a month-on-month basis, sales for the Austrian increased by a decent 11 percent, keeping things steady. Witnessing a major leap in sales last month was Suzuki that sold a total of 16 premium bikes, compared to just 3 units in August. The legendary Hayabusa was the major contributor here with 12 units moving out while the V-Strom and GSX-R1000 contributed 2 units each. 1 unit of the Intruder was also shipped out last month, but surprisingly the GSX-S1000 street-fighter saw one model being returned.
Harley-Davidson has helped realise the American dream for Indian riders as the entry-level Street 750 sold 361 units in September, compared to just 85 units sold in August (new model effect!). The other cruisers weren’t so positive though as the Iron 883 was the only other Harley to garner positive numbers with 73 units sold. Compared to August, sales for the SuperLow, Forty-Eight, Street Bob, Fat Boy and Heritage Softail Classic saw a decline in volumes. The premium sellers including Breakout managed just 1 unit, whereas the Night Rod, Street Glide and CVO Limited did not open the books.
After a stark dip in sales during August, Kawasaki has managed to bounce back in terms of volumes and sold a cumulative 103 units in September, a hike of 157 percent. The festive season has worked its charm as save for the entry-level Z250, the entire Kwacker range including the Ninja 300, Ninja 650, ER-6n, Z800, ZX-10R, Z1000 and ZX-14R saw a healthy rise in numbers. While the Ninja 300 did see a 100 percent month-on-month growth, it was nowhere close to the figures managed by the Yamaha R3, which saw a whopping 82 percent hike in sales and single handedly sold more units than Kawasaki’s total bikes put-together.
