Honda sells a record over 1 million Activas in first 5 months

Mumbai: Despite the two-wheeler industry de-growing from many months in a row, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India has set new record by selling over 1 million of its flagship scooter Activa during the first five months of the current fiscal.

"The over 1 million sale-mark makes Activa the largest selling two-wheeler in the country. April through August, we've sold 1,001,350 Activas, registering a growth of 20 percent over the previous year. Not just that the Activa volume has grown 20 times that of the two-wheeler industry," senior vice president for sales and marketing Yadvinder Singh Guleria told PTI.

The numbers are interesting as the two-wheeler market as a whole has been de-growing all through this period, with the market leader Hero MotoCorp reporting high double-digit contraction in sales, as the rural markets, which are the mainstay of two-wheeler makers has been in distress due to poor rains and lower realisation from farm produce.

Speaking on the milestone, Keita Muramatsu, president and chief executive, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India said, "we are excited to have started the festive season on a high note, with Activa creating a hat-trick as the No. 1 selling two-wheeler for three consecutive months. From reactivating the scooter segment here in 2001, our iconic Activa has slowly started market penetration."

Guleria said the massive spike in sales was driven by a 35-40 percent increase in volumes during the festive season that began with Onam in Kerala.

He also said the rising numbers are not driven by any festive offers from the company, except that some special finance schemes.

Guleria said the highest selling model from the Activa platform is still the automatic version with the 125 cc variant and though it is being marketed as a family scooter, as many as one-third of its over 10 million users are women.

It can be noted that Honda redefined the scooter market in the country after the market leader Bajaj Auto discontinued.

Today, scooters constitute more than a third of the two-wheeler market and for Honda it gets 59 percent of its sales, led by the Activa that alone contributes 51 percent of sales. In the overall two-wheeler space, Honda enjoys 27 percent market share, he said.

With the 1-million mark sales, Honda has been securing the No.1 slot thrice in a row since the past three years, Guleria said.

Activa sold a total of 2.17 lakh units in August and cumulatively sold more than 1.7 lakh units more in the five-months period.