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The company, which follows July-June financial year, has been focussing on bringing new products at aggressive pricing in order to beat the slowdown in the premium motorcycle segment, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
“We were lower by around 10 per cent (in sales) than the previous year in FY20. This year FY21 we are expecting a growth of 15-20 per cent in our retail sales,” Triumph Motorcycles India Private Limited’s Business Head Shoeb Farooq said.
In 2019-20, the company had sold 800 units.
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Stating that Triumph Motorcycles India has been focussing on how to continuously create excitement in the industry, Farooq said, “We all know there is stress in the industry right now. The focus from our side is to continuously give reason for customers to come to our showroom and buy our products.”
Stressing on the company’s strategy, he said, “I think with this focus on products and aggressive pricing strategy that we have adopted, we are kind of steering much better than the overall industry right now. We have seen some recovery of the brand in the last three months, from June onwards.”
Highlighting the challenges ahead of the premium motorcycle segment, Farooq said for the last two-three months, the overall two-wheeler industry has seen 25-30 per cent decline and the degrowth in the premium space is much larger at around 50 per cent plus as compared to the same period the previous year.
He said with premium motorcycles being discretionary purchases, the recovery is slower while the lower engine capacity motorcycles segment has gained traction as the importance of personal commute due to the pandemic drove people to buy such affordable vehicles.
When asked about expectations from the festive season, Farooq said, “We are cautiously optimistic. The positives for us have been the traction on our new product launches, for example, the new Tiger 900 which we launched recently is right now on booking and availability is a concern over there. Similarly, Street RRR is also on booking right now. Rocket, even after 7 months of launch it continues to be on booking.”
Commenting on the company’s plans to bring its pre-owned motorcycle programme ‘Triumph Approved,’ he said it was delayed by two to three months because of COVID-19.
“Finally, we are going to launch the Triumph Approved programme in India. It will be a national programme. Our dealers are going to repurchase and sell these Triumph motorcycles. This will additionally give us a good entry price point to our brand. In these times that is also going to be a positive initiative,” Farooq said.
When asked how soon the programme would be launched, he said, “I am hopeful it should be live somewhere in October first half. We will start with three dealerships in Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru and in a month or two we will be live across the country.”