The Hindu Business Line : Scooting into history

From its heyday, when potential buyers uncomplainingly waited months on end to be able to buy one, is the metal-bodied geared scooter headed for a dishonourable exit?

That is a question for which it is almost painful to seek answers. After having seen so many of them on the road, and trained on one too, many of us will find the prospect unthinkable. But the numbers they have been clocking in the market has seen a steady decline for years now.

However, the big blow, so to say, to the metal-bodied scooter came last month when Bajaj Auto completely stopped production of these two-wheelers. Bajaj Auto was synonymous with the Indian scooter market and one of the pioneers responsible of the `scooterisation' of the Indian masses.

Bajaj and later LML were the icons of the Indian two-wheeler industry for decades, ruling the roads with their metal-bodied geared scooters. The last batch of geared scooters would have been shipped out of Bajaj showrooms last month. With that the small number of scooters from LML and the newer metal-bodied, geared scooter from Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India will be the only ones still available for this class of buyers.

A shrinking class

And that class is shrinking fast, much more rapidly in the cities than in the hinterland. There was a time when the scooter was the main product in the two-wheeler segment and bikes were on the fringes.

Bajaj now wants to focus more on step-throughs, gear-less scooterettes and bikes. But so steeped was the company into scooters that it recognised the potential for bikes very late.

But compared to the lakhs of geared scooters that used to be sold during the 1990s, the numbers today are minuscule. Excluding the 95,000 Honda Eterno units sold in 2005-06, the total number of geared scooters sold by the other two (Bajaj and LML) was mere 70,000 units. Together, after including the Eterno, the percentage of geared scooters to the total (including automatics) number of scooters sold during 2005-06 was just 16.

The Hamara Bajaj ad campaign is still fresh in our memory and has contributed immensely in refreshing the image of the company.

Now, one of the key models of the campaign — the Chetak — will probably just sputter into nostalgia.

More Stories on : Two/Three Wheelers | Bajaj Auto Ltd

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