Two wheeler maker Honda has announced setting up of new records by breaching 10 lakh retail sales for the first time in 2016 festive season.
"We started our preparations almost six months back. We have been consistently growing month on month this year. As a trend, automatic scooters are clearly driving the two-wheeler industry growth and with new scooter only fourth plant in Gujarat achieving peak production capacity in September," said President and CEO Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Pvt. Ltd., Keita Muramatsu.
"Honda strategically met festive demand with seamless dispatches over two months. This planning resulted in Honda's record performance and we acquired more than 10 lakh happy customers in the two festive months. What is more encouraging is that we added 2.6 lakh customers only on Dhanteras day," added Muramatsu.
Reflecting the paradigm shift in consumption pattern, scooterization led festive demand not only in urban markets but also semi-urban and rural markets. In this festive period, Activa again led the growth with peak retails of seven lakh+ units, followed by India's number one selling 125cc motorcycle CB Shine.
"With advanced preparations, aggressive marketing, new additional network and ensuring availability of products right up to the last mile network, Honda's festive retails grew a phenomenal 25 percent to stand at 12.5 lakh units in the festival. Moreover, Honda also closed its April to October, 2016 YTD despatch with 21 percent growth which is nearly double that of the 12 percent industry growth," said Senior Vice President - Sales and Marketing Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, Yadvinder Singh Guleria.
Honda's motorcycle sales too crossed 10 lakh benchmark for first time with 10,42,301 units reaching 12 percent growth in the shortest span of seven months.
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With this, Honda two wheelers is now the highest market share gainer and becomes the only company to add 2percent share and reach total market share of 26percent and Leader in two-wheeler industry volume growth this fiscal.
In October'16, Honda total sales stood at 4,92,367 units registering a 9percent growth over 4,31,865 units sold in October, 2015.
Automatic scooters sales continue to glide above 3 lakh mark (3,02,946 units) for the fourth month in a row while motorcycle sales stood at 1,67,542 units in domestic market in October'16.
Exports too continued to peak over 20,000 mark for the fifth month in the current fiscal and stood at 21,879 units with a stellar 29 percent growth.