The new range of bikes will go from 350cc all the way to 700cc and above
Royal Enfield is easily one of the biggest motorcycle brands in India today, having proved a lot of sceptics wrong with unprecedented domestic and international sales in the last decade. More significantly from a business standpoint, with a market share of 90 per cent in the 200-500cc segment and profit margins of over 30 per cent, it's also currently the most profitable bikemaker in the country.
Success then, speaks for itself, and international brands like Harley Davidson and Triumph wanted a piece of the action. To do so, they announced plans of introducing low-displacement bikes for developing markets that will directly compete with Royal Enfield’s portfolio. In retaliation, the Chennai based two-wheeler manufacturer has responded by planning to make its own range of big-bore bikes under the J, K, P and Q platform.
To elaborate, the J architecture is aimed at producing a new generation of BS-VI-compliant Classic, Thunderbird, Bullet, and Himalayan models; while the K platform focuses on building twin-cylinder bikes like the Continental GT 650 and the Interceptor 650. Both J and K platforms will compete against the new breed of motorcycles expected soon from the Bajaj-Triumph and TVS-BMW partnerships.
The latter two platforms will deal with bigger bikes post 2020-21; both P and Q architectures will target segments leading from 700cc and above. As a matter of fact, the Q platform has been specifically designed to compete with Triumph's Thruxton 900. A bold move, to say the least. However, the British manufacturer has years of expertise under its belt especially when it comes to manufacturing big-bore bikes, so going up against it won't be such an easy task.
As per Royal Enfield, around a dozen bikes are slated for 2020-21 and are currently under development at the firm’s R&D facility in the UK. These bikes will range from 350cc to 650cc and above. Unfortunately, detailed specifics of the plan is yet to be revealed as of now.
Statistics reveal that world over, mid-sized bikes account for less than 2 per cent, or collective sales of around one million, of the total 55-million market. With its new direction Royal Enfield intends to target markets such as Brazil and Latin America, where mid-size bikes contributes more than 5 per cent of the total market share.
Source - ET Auto from Economic Times
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