Days after Anand Mahindra admitted that entering two-wheeler commuter space was a mistake, Yamaha Motor India has anounced that it will discontinue motorcycles in the commuter space. In an interview with a publication, Ravinder Singh, Senior VP strategy and planning, Yamaha Motor India said that the company now plans to concentrate only on the premium commuter segment and above. This could mean the end of geared motorcycles under 150cc that currently constitutes of products such as the Saluto 125 and Saluto RX 110 commuter motorcycles. In addition to this, Yamaha will also make the entry point of scooters as 125-cc that was evident with its recent launch of Fascino 125 and Yamaha Ray-ZR 125.
Up until now, the company has not seen viable success in the aforementioned segment which has so far been dominated by companies such as Hero MotoCorp, Honda and TVS. Ahead of this, Anand Mahindra, the chairman of the homegrown auto group Mahindra and Mahindra, admitted that entering the commuter bike segment more than a decade ago was a failure on the part of the group. The group entered two-wheelers after buying out Kinetic Motors in July 2008 and relaunched the 'Freedom' bikes under the label of 'Mojo' but has not been able to make a mark in the vastly entry-model driven two-wheeler space in the country even after a decade. The market is dominated by Hero Motorcorp and Japanese major Honda which together control close to two-thirds of the over 21-million units per annum market. Of this, Mahindra sold a paltry 4,004 units in FY19, down 73 per cent from FY18. The only player in an over a dozen OEM market behind Mahindra is Kawasaki Motor which sold 3,115 units in the year, according to SIAM data.
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