Which entrepreneur would willingly part with her or his hard-earned money for grasping, self-serving politicians? asks Debashis Basu.
Led by market leader Hero Honda, two-wheeler manufacturers posted an impressive growth in sales during the month of November on the back of favourable bank lending rates and a good response to new launches. Heavy promotional campaigns and sales offers by most companies also aided demand.
Indian consumers are likely to get respite from rising prices just before the festival season. Some consumer companies, including automakers, have indicated that they are planning to pause price hikes just before demand picks up in August, while keeping a close eye on volatile raw material prices.
In an attempt to steal the two-wheeler market from the three Indian giants Hero Honda, Bajaj and TVS Motors, which collectively account for almost 85 per cent of sales, Japanese bike manufacturers like Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki will launch scaled-down Indian versions of their international superbike models.
The BMW Roadster Concept gives us a glimpse of what to expect from the upcoming TVS-BMW bikes, likely to be launched in India next year
After many attempts, Bajaj finally has a bike to counter Hero Honda in the 100cc segment.
Domestic passenger vehicle (PV) sales saw a significant growth in October due to increased availability of semiconductor chips and rising consumer confidence. The sales figures during the month - which coincided with the first post-Covid festival season - released by the top ten carmakers saw a jump of 30.7 per cent to 322,885 units in October. Auto companies count wholesales - units dispatched to dealers - as sales.
The Softbank-backed company has set a price band of Rs 72 to Rs 76 per share for the maiden share sale and is expected to test the appetite for new-age loss-making companies.
FMCG players -- Dabur, HLL, PSU BPCL, Korean car maker Hyundai, liqour barron Vijay Malaya's Mcdowell and TVS motors -- are among the major companies found to violate Advertising Standards Council of India code.
The country saw a massive year-on-year surge in the demand for electric vehicles, with retail sales of electric two-wheelers rising by 58 per cent, passenger vehicles by 130 per cent, three-wheelers by 82 per cent, and commercial vehicles by 171 per cent in March 2023, according to the data shared by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (Fada). According to a report by JMK Research, the EV segment as a whole grew by 157 per cent during FY23, to 1,180,597 units, from 458,746 units a year ago. Overall, EV sales in March 2023 rose by 82 per cent from the March 2022 figure, the JMK report added.
India is trying hard to erase Indonesia's wariness about New Delhi, building security cooperation in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. If Indonesia decides to buy the Brahmos missile, it would further strengthen relations between the world's most populous nation and the most populous Islamic country.
Mutual funds pared exposure to auto, cement, metal, FMCG, telecom, sugar, and power stocks in January.
Keen competition will make the going tough even for market leaders in the segment.
The firm, which showcased an electric variant of its Duet scooter at the 2016 Auto Expo, is working on two models at its Jaipur R&D centre.
A majority of CEOs from top Indian companies including ICICI Bank, Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor GE India, and HUL, do not foresee any production slowdown in this fiscal, even as rising input and interest costs are affecting the net profit margins, a CII survey has found.
The price war in the motorcycle market is all set to worsen with large production capacities at tax-free locations in the north ready to go on stream.
Two wheeler sales dropped in the past quarter as leading banks put two wheeler finance under high risk category.
The ongoing credit squeeze in the sluggish two- and three-wheeler markets may affect the March sales targets of the three leading domestic players in the country. Taking the cue from a buoyant FY07 where the two-wheeler industry grew by a healthy 11.42 per cent, companies such as Hero Honda, TVS Motors and Bajaj Auto were hoping to surpass the FY07 target of 7.8 million units this year.
Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), Suzuki Motorcycle India (SMI) and Yamaha Motor India (YMI) are building motorcycles and scooters to suit the Indian market. The models will be manufactured at the company's research and development centres in Japan and will use new platforms.
Declining sales and sliding margins are compelling two-wheeler makers such as Bajaj Auto, Hero Honda and TVS Motors to rejig strategy, to cope with the slowdown.
In doing so, Bajaj has become the first internal combustion engine two-wheeler company to launch an all-electric two-wheeler in India.
Rajiv Bajaj is on a high. First Bajaj Auto raced into the executive segment with the Discover snapping up a share of 21 per cent
Chief Election Commissioner James Michael Lyngdoh, i-flex solutions Ltd chief Rajesh Hukku, and TVS Motor chief executive Venu Srinivasan have figured among the top 25 'Stars of Asia' chosen by the prestigious Business Week magazine.
Automobile manufacturers, new and old, as well as ancillary suppliers are set to spend a combined Rs 70,630 crore over the next five years on either entering the electric vehicle segment or stepping up their presence in it. Data culled from announcements made by firms shows India, the world's fifth largest automobile market, is poised to receive one of the biggest capex pushes ever to fuel the transition from internal combustion engines to electric motors and batteries as part of a green drive. The EV push, egged on by the government's emphasis on electric mobility to meet its net zero targets, is expected to yield at least 25 electric vehicles - new ones as well as electrified versions of existing vehicles running on internal combustion engines.
"We expect to capture the top position in the premium segment with the new bike. We are also working on another bike in the premium segment," Hero Honda managing director Pawan Munjal told reporters in New Delhi.
The soft drinks giant bagged the sponsorship rights along with TVS Motor company and Videocon for matches in India in 2003-04.
The two-wheeler segment is, however, still far from its H1FY19 peak of 9.7 million units
The Sensex closed at 11,853.85 down 79 points. The Nifty lost 23 points to close at 3,455.
These are the best value for money bikes in terms of the money they save by using less fuel to run longer distances
The K-shaped economic recovery in India from the pandemic slowdown shows in corporate results as well. The automobile sector, which represents big-ticket consumption, continues to do well and has increased its share in corporate revenues and profits while fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies that sell low-ticket consumer goods are struggling with poor sales and earnings growth. The share of the automobile sector, including makers of auto ancillaries, in corporate net sales rose to a 10-quarter high of 10.05 per cent during July-September 2023 (Q2FY24) from 8.94 per cent a year earlier and 9.75 per cent in Q1FY24.
Ola Electric's technology team is working hard to iron out the technical kinks that marred the electric vehicle company's hyped online sale of its electric scooters (e-scooters) - the S1 and the S1 Pro - on Wednesday, said company sources. The SoftBank-backed firm is facing technical difficulties in making the website live for the purchase of its e-scooters. According to company sources, the website couldn't go live as there were integration issues.
Excise duty on small cars, motorcycles and SUVs was reduced.
With Housing Development Finance Corporation's (HDFC's) merger with HDFC Bank becoming effective on July 1, the merged entity is set to become the top weight in the benchmarks S&P BSE Sensex and the National Stock Exchange Nifty indices, dislodging the country's most valuable company, Reliance Industries (RIL), from its perch. HDFC will stop trading after July 13. At present, RIL has a weighting of close to 12 per cent in the Sensex and 10.3 per cent in the broad-based Nifty. Meanwhile, HDFC Bank and HDFC have weights of 9.9 per cent and 6.8 per cent in the Sensex and 8.8 per cent and 6 per cent in the Nifty, respectively.
