Bajaj Auto scooters will fade into oblivion from March 2010 because of the onslaught of motorbikes.
Bajaj Auto has decided to stop manufacturing scooters from the next financial year. Consumers who remember India before liberalization will probably feel pangs of nostalgia at the announcement that Bajaj Auto is set to stop making scooters.
The Bajaj Kristal is the last of an illustrious lineup of scooters from Bajaj and it will meet the end of its life cycle by the close of this financial year. ‘We will focus on motorcyles', said Rajiv Bajaj, managing director, Bajaj Auto Ltd.
Bajaj was once one of the largest scooter manufacturers of the world. Products like the Chetak, Bajaj's first in-house product, were a coveted possession in the household of the 1980s.
In 2000, 19.54 lakh scooters were sold compared to 17.68 lakh motorcycles. The very next year, the figures were 21.7 lakh motorcycles to 15.85 lakh scooters, with sales dipping for the latter. The end came in 2005 when Bajaj phased out the Chetak, after a 33-year uninterrupted run.
Many can still recall the days when waiting lists for Bajaj scooters stretched into years, with people willing to pay a premium equal to the original cost to get hold of one. The sturdy vehicles were much sought after as wedding gifts; strings were often pulled and quotas invoked to speed up the allotment.
Once the world's biggest player in scooters, selling over a lakh units monthly in its heyday, Bajaj's long-running advertising campaign described ‘hamara Bajaj' as the symbol of a resurgent India.
But rather than look into the rearview mirror, Bajaj Auto is focusing on the road ahead. Bajaj Auto managing director Rajiv Bajaj announced on Wednesday that the company was all set to bid adieu to the segment as it concentrates on motorcycles, in line with its ambitions of emerging as the world's biggest bikemaker ahead of Honda. ‘‘We have an opportunity to shoot for something... to be the largest motorcycle maker in the world,'' Bajaj said as he announced growth plans for the motorcycle segment.
While the greater potential in the motorcycle segment may be one of the reasons prompting Bajaj to exit the scooter market, the company's listless performance in scooters would certainly be among the other compelling reasons behind the withdrawal, expected by the end of this fiscal.
Bajaj has seen its scooter volumes drop to barely a couple of hundreds per month. The company, which dominated the scooter market with geared brands like Chetak and Super, suffered in the 1990s with the coming of motorcycles in the market that were not only more stylish and appealing but they also offered greater mileage.
“We want to become a motorcycle specialist and do not want to distract ourselves by scooters and mopeds... we cannot get greedy and try to do everything,” Bajaj said. “We are not developing scooters. We have no scooter on the drawing board.”
