After four consecutive months of declining wholesale volumes, Royal Enfield recorded growth in September and October, with festive demand propelling October dispatches to the 1-lakh unit milestone. While strong festive demand usually tapers off after the season, the automaker is witnessing a positive trend and expects a positive trajectory.
"During this time, the middle-weight segment saw a lot of activity, action, and noise. Last time, I mentioned that any amount of marketing effort we would have done would have been an over-emphasis at that point, and would have gone into a saturated phase. So, we held back on market activations and all those things. We wanted to enter market activations around September onwards."
Meanwhile, Royal Enfield generates around one-third of its domestic volume from the rural area. In October, rural India continued to demonstrate its market strength, posting robust growth in key vehicle categories, despite the festive season traditionally driving stronger urban sales.
The recent data from the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) also revealed interesting shifts in the urban-rural dynamics of India's auto retail market. In October, auto sales in urban areas were down 2.7 percent month-on-month and 1.5 percent year-on-year. In contrast, rural sales were up 2.5 percent on the month and 1.4 percent on the year in October 2024.
"Rural demands are going up. In urban areas, the overall growth rate is lower. We are seeing it even for our motorcycles. There are some products like Guerrilla 450, which are urban-centric. Now we are going to pick up those areas where it has a higher traction and we are going to work on it during the two quarters. That is where our focus is going to be on the market activations," Govindarajan added.
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