Showing posts with label Indian market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indian market. Show all posts

Friday, October 05, 2012

SUPERBIKES IN INDIA: GROWTH TREND

The Superbike Segment in India is beginning to open up as Incumbents and New Entrants fill up gaps in The Market. B&E’s Sanchit Verma does a Quick Stopgap Review before the Number Game Begins
 
“There were around 1000 super premium bikes sold in 2009 and 2009-10 is going above at the rate of 20% and the reason for it is that the GDP growth rate is about 9% for the youth population and that too, a well earning youth population,” says Sanjay Tripathi, Director of Marketing, Harley-Davidson India. The latest buzz is that BMW would be announcing their motorrad luxury bikes by the end of the year, which will start with a price tag of whopping Rs.1.8 million. Hendrik von Kuenheim, General Director, BMW Motorrad, commented, “We are confident that our motorcycles and will swiftly become established in timely preparation for the growing market.” BMW, which made its successful entry into the Indian market with its luxury cars, seems confident about their reentry into the the luxury bike market after the failed launch of BMW Fundaro 650. The luxury market currently stands at 1% of the overall market. A spokesperson from Honda 2 wheelers comments, “Last year, we sold around 70 units across India with only two operational setups in Delhi & Mumbai. This year, we plan to sell 100 units.”

Most of these superbikes are at such hefty prices that the rational minded would prefer buying quality four wheelers for that kind of money. But superbikes are not expected to sell on the rational appeal in India as much as they would for the thrill and the oomph factor, to those with huge disposable incomes. Globally, the scenario is different as bikes are only used for special occasions or sports. But in India, motorcycles have become a regular mode of commuting. One would doubt that the masses would actually be able to enjoy the experience of these bikes on Indian roads. But fanatics have gone through thick and thin to get them nevertheless – be it by paying heavy import duties of about 113% for unregistered bikes and about 153% for registered vehicles – facing government issues like getting it passed through ARAI and also attaching a ‘Sarre guard’ and ‘front plate no.’ to make it legal.

On another front, while traditionally, Indian players have offered bikes in the 90cc to 250cc range (with Enfield the exception with a 500cc offering), the next level starts only with an 883cc Harley-Davidson or a 1000cc CBR. Recently, the gap has been filled by Garware Motors, which announced Hyosung’s re-entry in India with a 650 cc superbike, which is currently under Homologation process. “Beyond the 250cc segment, only the Royal Enfield was available with 350cc and 500cc and after that, the only models available are 1 ltr plus. So we thought we would fill in the gap,” predictably accepts Diya Garware, MD, Garware Motors.

With Aprilla, MV Augusta and BMW Motorrad currently in talks with a local importers and companies like Harley and Hyosung planning their CKD units, it seems that the sector is well on its way to opening up and more such gaps should be filled, taking the superbike exhilaration to a larger audience. Like other sectors, players would ultimately learn to adapt to Indian price sensitivities and penetrate deeper in the market. And then the next big demand from this growing superbike community could well be relaxation of speed limits on Indian roads. That may take quite a while though.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Monday, August 13, 2012

A B&E EXCLUSIVE INSIDER

As subhash chandra plans a gradual exit, B&E catches up with him and his two sons to discover more of what’s going on at work

If you thought that that sounded much like the veteran Chandra, you would be right, as even Punit says, “We both focus on profits!” But that’s where the similarities (on the business front) between father and son end. Vanita Kohli Khandekar, an independent media consultant and writer, tells B&E, “Chandra is a visionary and no one can match him at that. But a big problem at Zee was execution. Chandra is very good at spotting business opportunities, while Punit is more of a hands-on operational guy. He gets involved with the nitty gritties and that is what the channel needs today.” Amit Goenka gives a similar feedback between his father and elder brother as he says, “My father is a great visionary, while Punit is a perfectionist.” After fixing up the group’s GEC, Punit is now focusing on expanding the regional and sports channel portfolio. The company has acquired the remaining 45% stake in Taj TV and as few know, its management is in the process of restructuring the entire sports business under the Ten brand. The sports bouquet of Zee will be made a separate entity and will function as a subsidiary. Also, Zee Sports will be renamed Ten Action (the proposed name) and a new golf channel (Ten Golf) will be added to the sports bouquet. So what’s the rationale behind this restructuring? Punit says, “We believe that Ten Sports is a formidable brand within the sports genre in the country, and garners the highest viewerships in the genre on any non-cricket day. And since Ten Sports and Zee Sports functioned as separate entities, we could not club the two channels and offer it to advertisers. Therefore, Zee Sports was not able to piggyback on the popularity of Ten Sports, either on the distribution or the ad-sales front.”

Apart from that, niche content is on Punit’s priority list. Zee is exploring the opportunity to launch niche channels in genres like action, sports (pool & golf), home shopping and the likes. The company is also going to launch two high definition channels soon. Industry experts say that the Indian market is not ready for niche channels as of now. But Punit counters, “If you wait for it to become viable, you will never be in the game. We have always been ahead, because we see an opportunity before anyone else can.” The niche channel business will bloom once the number of digital TV homes grow. Punit projects that there will be around 45-50 million digital homes in the country over the next five years. Thus, they plan to invest in the niche category over the next few years.

But the wine has not been sweet forever. Chandra’s elder son has had his fair share of disagreements with his father, and he candidly admits that and offers, “I am a firm believer of the saying that by the time you realise that your father was right… you have a son who thinks his father is wrong!” He cites one example: During his early days, unlike Chandra, Punit strongly believed that it was important to rope-in celebrities and go for high buzz programming to remain competitive. However, time and again, he felt that his belief was being proven wrong and that his father was right after all. [That explains why Zee TV has mostly stayed away from roping-in celebs and high buzz programming, even if such a strategy had worked well for other channels.] But that had also created a disconnection between the channel and the young audience, whose importance had been gradually but steadily increasing in the TV space. Till date, Zee doesn’t believe in high buzz programming. But Punit is not the one to give up, as he says, “One phenomenon cannot determine that it will work well in general, forever... After all there has never been a second KBC.” Surely, when Punit takes ‘total’ control of Zee, you will witness one big change. Take a guess.

Till date, Punit has managed to pump life into Zee, while his younger sibling Amit, has built a Rs.24 billion business in the gaming space, almost out of nothing. However, their lottery business has had to face a lot of regulatory issues and Amit feels that is the biggest challenge for Playwin in the years to come. Like his father and elder brother, Amit too never loses his focus on the bottomline; as he shares his continuing worry about slowing growth and falling margins in the gaming business. He says, “Playwin is profitable but not as profitable as other businesses of the Zee group. Margins are low, and not more than 2.0-2.5%. In terms of revenues, we expect a slow growth of 7-8% over the coming year.” Amit is also keen on other businesses. He shares, “Currently, there are few areas in the media vertical, where we are either not strong or absent as a group. One of them is the interactive space, and I am interested in getting personally involved with this space soon. Over the next six to nine months, many new events will unfold...”


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