The dominance of Japanese automotive brands in the scooter segment, with a 64 per cent share in the category, would get a further fillip when Yamaha launches its range of automatic scooters later in the year.
September onwards, India Yamaha Motors, the sixth-largest two-wheeler company, would start retailing ‘Ray’, an automatic scooter, which it had been building for the past three years, specifically keeping female customers in mind. Thereafter, the company intends to tap each of the sub-segments, starting with a powerful model, targeted at male consumers. It hopes to get a first-mover advantage with this model, as there are no products under this category in India.
Hiroyuki Suzuki, CEO and managing director, said, “We will have to address the needs of men and women with different products and there has to be a product which will be common to both. so we will look at tapping into each sub-segment of the scooter segment in the coming period”.
Further, the company is looking at bringing a common utility scooter which can address the needs of both men and women. Most scooters sold today in the domestic market, such as Honda Activa, TVS Wego or the Suzuki Swish 125 are utility scooters.