MUMBAI: For the seventh consecutive month in July, Activa, flagship scooter from Honda, has not only topped the sales chart among all two-wheelers but has also contributed to 38 per cent of the incremental sale in the industry.
The achievement has made the Japanese major to revise upwards its scooter sales target to over 24 per cent this year.
Activa for the first time ended the 15-year reign of Splendor from the Hero MotoCorp stable in March 2014 and also for five months in 2015. But since January this year, it has not looked back with July recording the widest sales margin over Splendor with a lead of 58,413 units, according to the Siam data. July also marked the highest-ever sales for Activa at 2,56,173 units since its launch in 2001. It can be noted that in March 2014, Activa for the first time ended the reign of the Splendor by selling 14,150 units more at 1,77,928 units than the Hero brand. In that year, it also held the lead in July and September. Similarly, in 2015, it led the Splendor in five months. In January this year, Activa took a lead of 10,778 units over the Splendor, which almost doubled to 20,714 in February, but declined to 10,717 in March. It further came down to 9,697 in April but zoomed by 30,307 units in May and by 22,077 in June. July saw a lead of 58,413 units over the Splendor. When contacted Honda Motorcycles & Scooter India (HMSI) senior vice president for Sales and Marketing, YS Guleria, attributed the rising industry leadership of Activa to the brand salience as well as the reduction in the back orders following the commissioning of the 0.6-million second line at its Gujarat plant in June. “We are happy that Activa continues to cheer us with ever-increasing monthly volumes and leading the industry volume chart. July saw the maximum lead over the Splendor with the Activa leading by 58,413 units,” Guleria told PTI over phone from Delhi. “We should also note that the Activa contributed as much as 38 per cent of the incremental sales of 1,62,703 units in the industry in July,” he added. It can be noted that Activa has been steadily narrowing its gap with Splendor since March 2014, when it trailed by 1,92,096 units against the Hero brand, which more than halved to 80,170 units in 2015 when it sold 2,409,166 units against Splenders 2,489,336 units. In 2014, the cumulative Activa sales stood at 1,085,835 units against 2,277,931 units of Splendor, the company said. –PTI
