Bajaj to exit scooter market

Dec. 9: Bajaj Auto, once known for its scooters which revolutionised the two-wheeler market in the country, on Wednesday said that it will exit the segment by the end of the fiscal to focus exclusively on motorcycles.
The company that by and large created the scooter market in the country through its popular ‘Hamara Bajaj’ campaigns in the 1980s and 90s, today sells just one scooter — the 100-cc gearless Kristal.
“We will exit the scooter market because we don’t see much sense in it...If we are to be a motorcycle specialist, we cannot make scooters,” Bajaj Auto managing director, Mr Rajiv Bajaj, told reporters here at the launch of its 135-cc Pulsar, targeted more at the mass-market.
“The scooters did not sell according to our expectations. We are making hardly 1,000 scooters a month now and mostly for exports. Now, our focus is on motorcycles,” he said and added that the company wants to become the largest bike player in the world, without giving any specific time-frame.
“One day, God willing, we will be the largest motorcycle company in the world. If we have to be a motorcycle specialist, we have to make sacrifice (in scooter segment),” he added.
According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers’ (SIAM), Bajaj just sold 154 units of Crystal in November and exported 104 units. Its cumulative domestic scooter sales during the April-November period was 3,356 units and 728 units overseas.
Bajaj said the company has a production capacity of three million bikes annually.