World Motorcycle News

TVS Motor Company on Monday announced that two of its directors from the promoter family, Mr Gopal Srinivasan and Mr T.K. Balaji, had resigned.

They are, respectively, brother and brother-in-law of TVS Motor Company Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Venu Srinivasan.

Mr Gopal Srinivasan told Business Line on Monday that the decision was taken because the current thinking in the TVS family is that the members of the family would hold board positions only in the holding company and not in the operating companies. “It is good from a governance angle,” Mr Gopal Srinivasan said.

He noted that some members of the TVS family had to attend around 40 board meetings of TVS companies each year, apart from any meetings of non-TVS companies in which they might happen to be a director.

He said he had also resigned as a whole-time director from Sundaram-Clayton and TVS Electronics Ltd.

Shaeffler is the world’s biggest maker of ball-bearings and has reportedly offered €10 billion (£7.9 billion) for the takeover.

Continental has been valued at €10.9 billion (£8.6 billion) and the company’s share price has halved in recent weeks as rising costs of raw materials takes its toll on the tyre industry.

Seasoned tourer and probably one of the most famous users of the company’s products, Nick Sanders, is currently on his Parallel Worlds Tour on Continental tyres.

After a series of top-level exits and slide in sales, motorcycle maker Yamaha Motor has restructured its Indian operations as well as changed its marketing strategy.

The company has also decided to do away with giving discounts on motorcycles to push sales and has brought its auto-finance arm to India to finance purchase of its products.

India Yamaha Motor head for sales and marketing, Mr Pankaj Dubey, told that the company has restructured Indian operations as well as integrated various operations to create a focused approach towards increasing sales.

“There were problems earlier. But now everything is geared towards serving the customers,” he said. Right from manufacturing to assembly, the focus is on customers, he said.

Mr Dubey said Yamaha has brought its auto-finance arm, Bussan Auto finance, which will fully finance the customers in purchasing the company’s motor cycles.

“We will finance the purchases at extremely competitive rates,” he said. Some of the private sector banks in the country have toughened norms and increased interest rate for two wheelers purchase.

This has led to a major slide in sales of two wheelers in the country.

During 2007-08, two wheelers sales in the country declined nearly 8 per cent.

Mr Dubey said Yamaha expects to increase its share in the two-wheeler market to about 10 per cent by 2010 or 8 lakh units from the current level of about 2.6 per cent which is about 1.6 lakh units. Early this year, Yamaha had announced an investment of around Rs 800 crore in its Indian operations which includes plants in Surajpur in Uttar Pradesh and Faridabad in Haryana.

It also entered into an agreement with Mitsui & Co. to become a joint investor in India Yamaha Motor Pvt Ltd.

Yamaha’s product portfolio in India includes MT01 (1670 cc), YZF-R1 (998 cc), YZF-R15 (150 cc), Gladiator SS & RS (125 cc), Gladiator Graffiti (125cc), G5 (106 cc), Alba (106 cc) and Crux (106 cc).

Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India is set to close this year with sales of over one million two-wheelers, according to Mr S. Aoyama, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday after the nation-wide launch of its latest 125-CC bike, Honda Stunner CBF 125, Mr Aoyama said the market in the country is witnessing an increasing number of buyers for the 125- and 150-cc models.

Last year, Honda India closed with sales of 9.07 lakhs, accounting for a market share of about 11 per cent, and is confident of closing this year with overall sales volumes of 1 million plus.

“We are looking at a market share of about 15 per cent in couple of years and have the potential to produce about 14 lakh vehicles in the existing plant,” he said.

Asked about the impact of higher interest rates and the country’s current economic conditions impacting the volumes in India, Mr Aoyama said, “These may be temporary concerns, we believe that the overall industry will grow this year.”

Source: Blonnet

Bajaj Auto Ltd will launch two more motorcycle models on the XCD platform, following a good response to the Bajaj XCD, a 125 cc motorcycle. According to a Bajaj Auto press release, the Bajaj XCD 125 DTSi has recorded average sales of 27,000 units a month, making it the largest selling 125 cc motorcycle in the country. The Bajaj XCD 125 was launched in September 2007. It said that the 125 cc-plus segment today constituted almost 40 per cent of the motorcycle market, up f rom only 25 per cent two years ago. The release said Bajaj Auto has a market share of almost 50 per cent in the 125 cc category and noted that Bajaj XCD 125 alone contributed 13 per cent of the 125 cc segment.