New uni-sex Yamaha scooter to be launched in 2014

After making a successful entry in the scooter market with the Ray and Ray-Z, Yamaha Motor India is planning to expand its scooter portfolio by launching a new uni-sex scooter in the up-coming year. The Ray was the company’s first scooter offering for the Indian market and was targeted at female consumers while the Ray-Z which was introduced earlier this year is a more male centric model. With this new offering Yamaha plans to tap a larger consumer base and the new scooter would be directly pitched against the segment leader Honda Activa. Yamaha hasn’t announced any details on the scooter but we feel that it would be showcased at the up-coming 2014 Auto Expo in New Delhi.

This move doesn’t come as a surprise from Yamaha since both the scooters have played a key role in improving the sales figure of the Japanese two-wheeler manufacturer as sales grew by 42% in April-September period. Currently Yamaha has managed to grab only 5% of the total scooter market, which though sounds less is a commendable effort given the fact that it only entered the scooter spectrum only a year back. 

From the recent sales figure in the two-wheeler industry it is evident that scooters are the future for two-wheeler manufacturers to improve sales given the current flattish market scenario. Such has been the demand of scooters that reportedly Honda’s Activa registered sales of 1.42 lakh units thereby overtaking the Splendor as the highest selling two-wheeler in the month of September. Yamaha also wants to cash in on the scooter boom and if they are able to pitch a well rounded product against the Activa, it would be helpful in increasing their sales figure and revenue even though they wouldn’t be able to surpass it so soon.