Homegrown automotive Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is confident that the domestic 2-wheeler market would witness a turnaround in the next fiscal starting April 2013.
“The 2-wheeler segment is likely to clock 8-10% growth in the coming quarters compared to the sub 5% growth over the last one year,” Anoop Mathur, president (2 wheeler sector) and member of the Group Executive Board, M&M told Business Standard here.
He said growth in the automobile sector had been “soft” over the past quarters due to several factors.
“Major factors contributing to the rather flat growth are high interest rates, high fuel prices and weak market sentiments, wherein the customers normally defer their purchases,” he added.
The scooter segment has grown much better than the motorcycle segment. The reason for the higher growth in the scooter space is the preference by female rider as well, he underlined.
The company is looking at increasing its retail and service points to push its 2-wheeler sales.
“The domestic 2-wheeler market is huge and the penetration is still quite low in India. We want to increase our market share in this segment with new launches at regular intervals,” Mathur added.
Meanwhile, M&M launched 2 motorcycles viz. Centuro and Pantero in the Uttar Pradesh market, which are targetted at the youth segment cutting across rural and urban backgrounds.