Is Royal Enfield In Trouble? Sales Down By Over 40 Per cent

As we kick off a new financial year, we’ve got our hands on Royal Enfield’s sales numbers, both for the month of March 2020 and the financial year that’s just gone by. Here's our low-down:

Taking a cursory look at the sales figures for March 2020, it might look as if the Chennai manufacturer is in a great deal of trouble. The 32,630 bikes sold in India last month are 44 per cent lower than the 58,434 bikes sold by RE in March 2019. That being said, one must take into account the fact that the country has been under official lockdown for 25 per cent of the month, and even before that, people weren’t exactly rushing to showrooms.

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On the upside, exports are up by 33 per cent to 3,184 units, meaning that overall sales for March 2020 are only 41 per cent lower than March 2019, despite everything that’s been going on. Some more good news from the RE camp is that the manufacturer has successfully managed to sell off all its BS4 stock, meaning that it doesn’t have to get involved in all the mess going on at the moment with the BS6 deadline being postponed. Another noteworthy event held in March was the Royal Enfield Slide School, which we took part in and you can read about here.

Still, now that all the manufacturer’s products are BS6-compliant, prices have gone up across the board, quite significantly in cases like the Classic 350. And with COVID-19 showing no sign of disappearing soon, the company faces testing times ahead. Nevertheless, the brand is doing its best to fight back, and is all set to introduce the new J platform single-cylinder lineup very soon, starting with the upcoming Meteor.

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Looking at sales figures for the entire year, things are a lot less bleak. The 6,56,651 bikes sold in 2019-20 are only 18 per cent lower than the 8,05,273 sold in 2018-19. More promisingly, exports are up by a significant 89 per cent from 20,825 units in 2018-19 to 39,296 units in 2019-20. The 2020-21 financial year might be off to a bit of an unpleasant start, but we hope that things start looking a bit brighter soon. In the meantime, stay tuned to ZigWheels for more updates.