The month of June has turned out to be quite fruitful for automakers, especially two-wheeler manufacturers. With virtually zero sales in the month of April and similar figures in May, the second quarter of 2020 has been nothing short of a disappointment.
However, things have started to change with the lockdown diluted and businesses gradually starting to gather pace. Two-wheeler sales figures for June 2020 back the fact that with restriction eased, things are finally starting to get back on track.
Hero MotoCorp
The market leader, Hero MotoCorp has led the revival of the domestic two-wheeler sector in the month of June with wholesale deliveries made to dealerships of over 450,744 units – a record sequential growth of four times over the 112,682 units dispatched in May’20.
Compared to June 2019, the sales see a dip of 26.86 per cent. Hero sold 616,256 units in June last year. Hero says that a significant chunk of the sales is coming from rural and semi-urban markets, which received benefits from various stimulus packages rolled out by the government. Considering these are unusual and highly disrupted times, it is appropriate and logical to compare the sales trajectory in the sequential months, and not with the corresponding month of the previous year.
Honda Mot0rcycle and Scooter
The second month of the return of economic activity saw Honda’s total two-wheeler dispatches also shoot up nearly 4 times to 210,879 units in June’20 (202,837 domestic and 8,042 exports) compared to 54,820 units in May’20 (54,000 domestic and 820 exports). The country’s second-largest two-wheeler manufacturer – on Wednesday, reported a 55% year-on-year decline in domestic sales when compared to that of the previous year.
In May, the company reported sales of just 54,000 motorcycles and scooters after restarting manufacturing operations in its Haryana, Rajasthan and Karnataka factories. The Japanese manufacturer also reported a 68.43% y-o-y decline in exports to 8,042 units in June. With more and more Indians now preferring personal mobility for safety, Honda’s retails jumped 156% to nearly 3 lakh units in June’20 from 1.15 lac units in May. Furthermore, as safety & sanitization becomes No. 1 priority in the New Normal, service visits to Honda’s authorized workshops too more than doubled to 22 lac+ units (vs. 10.5 lac visits in May’20).
Royal Enfield
Royal Enfield saw a dip of 35% when it registered an overall sales figure of 38,065 in June 2020 in comparison to sales of 58,339 units during the same month last year. During this period, domestic sales dipped by 34% to 36,510 and exports fell by 52% to 1,555 units, therefore, witnessing a negative trend due to the global pandemic. The Chennai-based manufacturer, however, didn’t share details of the previous month.
TVS Motor
TVS Motor Company registered sales of 1,98,387 units in June 2020, which is 33 per cent lower, compared to the company’s performance in June 2019 where it sold 2,97,102 units. The Indian automobile major resumed operations in a phased manner at its factories in Hosur, Mysuru, and Nalagarh. While year-on-year sales have been low, the company did witness a three-fold increase in despatches in June, as compared to nearly 59,000 units that were rolled out of its facilities in May this year.
TVS dispatched 191,076 two-wheelers in June, witnessing a drop of 32.59 per cent over 283,461 units sold in June 2019. Domestic two-wheeler sales stood at 144,817 units last month, as opposed to 226,279 units during the same period last year, a decline of 36 per cent year-on-year. Motorcycles contributed 84,401 units to the company’s two-wheeler volumes during the previous month, as against 131,331 units in June 2019. Scooters, on the other hand, contributed 65,666 units as opposed to 99,007 units in the year before.
TVS Motor Company’s exports stood at 53,123 units, a decline of 24 per cent year-on-year as compared to 69,900 units in June 2019. The overall export figure though has seen a massive increase when compared to May 2020, which saw the manufacturer ship about 10,000 units overseas. Two-wheeler exports stood at 46,259 units as against 57,182 units in June last year. Three-wheelers of the company registered sales of 7,311 units in June 2020 as against 13,641 units in June 2019.
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During the first quarter of the current financial year, two-wheelers posted sales of 2.55 lakh units as against sales of 8.84 lakh units in the first quarter FY 19-20. Three-wheelers of the company registered sales of 0.11 lakh units in the first quarter of the current year as against 0.39 lakh units in the first quarter of FY 19-20.
Bajaj Auto
Total sales of Bajaj Auto Ltd. fell 31% year-on-year to 278,097 units in June. Domestic sales were also down 34% to 1,51,189 units while Exports were down 28% to 1,26,908 units Two-wheeler sales down 27% to 2,55,122 units Commercial Vehicle sales down 57% to 22,975 unit.
Nice bike! In Vietnam, we often choose Honda CRF250L as it’s more powerful and suitable for the terrains here.