JOIN USIn a bid to cement its presence in the storeyed motorcycle market, India's largest sports utility vehicle manufacturer Mahindra Group on Monday launched a 110-cc motorcycle priced at Rs 45,000.
The introductory pricepoint ex-showroom Delhi, has been much debated prior to the launch, but largely matched analyst and media predictions of it being in the Rs 40,000-45,000 range.
The launch of the 110-cc 'Centuro' by Mahindra Two Wheelers, a division of the Mahindra Group, marked a deepening of the group's engagement with the high-volume 100-110 cc commuter motorcycle segment, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra said.
The vehicle, with a displacement of 8.5 bhp and peak torque of 8.5 Nm, was rolled out nationally in Jaipur with a claimed fuel consumption rate of 85.4 kmpl. Anoop Mathur, president of the group's automobile division Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd (M&M), said that it is backed by strong customer-centric R&D, emphasising that the bike comes with a built-in 5-year warranty and new features unique to the 100-110 cc segment.
Calling the Centuro a milestone in the group's entrepreneurial journey, Mahindra said, "We have always attempted to arrive at a holistic consensus between customer feedback, our dealers and the demand-supply chain while attempting anything new. Centuro is engineered around the consumer and is consumer-inspired technology."
He said with the Centuro, the company is taking a leaf out of the experiences gained while developing its popular XUV range of multi-utility vehicles, which have been selling at attractive pricepoints. Mahindra did not elaborate further on the parallels between the two categories.
On the progress achieved by MTW in the scooter market, Mahindra noted that the women's two-wheeler segment holds huge potential. "The Rodeo RZ has been appreciated by women. Going ahead, we will target the women's scooter market strongly," he said.
He reminisced that when the group had acquired Kinetic years ago, it was asked why it was entering the scooter business. "We felt we had the ability to win here, and we did well. Skeptics have always been active during key stages of our growth," Mahindra said.
On the same note, he said, "They (the skeptics) had doubts as to our growth potential in the two-wheeler segment when we first eyed it. When we forayed into SEZs with the Mahindra World City in Jaipur, they expressed reservations. Later, they questioned our abilities to make a mark with our acquisition of IT company Satyam. But then, we have proved them wrong by correcting our mistakes as we make them."
The Centuro's launch came on a day when M&M raised prices of some of its vehicles by an average of 0.5 per cent due to increased input costs. Sales in June fell nearly 8 per cent on a year-on-year basis.
The group will further drive two-wheeler growth with at least 10 new products and their variants lined up over the next two years, company officials said.
(The author was in Jaipur at the invitaion of Mahindra)