Bike Exports to Africa and Asia Turn Positive

In a news that would make us Indians glad, it has been reported that exports of Indian two-wheelers have turned positive going by the fact that its target markets like Southeast Asia, Africa and parts of Latin America were not as badly impacted by the Covid pandemic as those in Europe and the US.

A data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed that this segment’s exports turned positive for the first time this fiscal in September when it showed an increase of 9 per cent.

Understandably, Indian two-wheeler companies are stressing geographies in a big way. Take TVS Motor, for which “markets such as Asia and Africa are doing well in terms of product acceptance as well as expansion of the network”. “We are also expanding aggressively in Asean, CIS and LatAm regions,” said a company spokesperson.

“India is the largest producer of two-wheelers in the world. The quality of our two-wheelers has improved drastically. We are going to lead the future of this industry,” he added.

Along with geography, TVS Motor’s is also pitching for a premium positioning. “We will look at premiumisation as one of the ways of increasing our profit margin in the international market,” the spokesperson observed.

As Indian two-wheeler companies scale up volumes, they are also looking to establish a global production footprint. Royal Enfield saw its international sales increase 96 per cent in 2019-20. “We have recently established an assembly unit in Argentina, the first outside of India and have plans to set up two more in Thailand and Brazil in the next12-18 months,” said a company spokesperson.