Bajaj aims to flood globe with bikes made in China

Now that the product is ready, Bajaj is believed to have made contract manufacturing arrangements with firms in China and is readying to sell this low-cost bike in China, Nigeria and some of its other export markets. Sources also said that in a major departure from precedents, the company has decided to create a new brand name for this product, dissociating it from the ?Bajaj? brand name altogether. Though Bajaj Auto has not confirmed this development, sources pointed out that the ?Bajaj? brand name has been associated with technological superiority and the company perhaps wants to keep a product which uses Chinese components (believed by some to be inferior in quality) out of the Bajaj brand umbrella.

The new brand identity for the low-cost bike could be revealed soon. But why is Bajaj ready to peddle low-cost bikes, especially with a ?Made in China? label?

One of the company?s vendors pointed out that Bajaj has suffered over the last few months due to lack of a “strong product line-up with only one product in the entry-level, 100cc-125cc segment. Even the XCD platform did not perform well in the market? an entry into the low-cost segment could give it an edge over competition since the company would be offering a good product at the lowest possible price.” Though domestic sales for Bajaj have not been encouraging, exports have shown healthy growth.

Another vendor said Bajaj has set itself an ambitious target of capturing 30-40% share of the 13 million Chinese bikes currently sold across the globe. A two-wheeler dealer pointed out that eventually, any low-cost product Bajaj develops for export markets would be sold in the domestic market as well.

“Bajaj needs to strengthen its presence in the entry-level space. Platina is the only offering and even the Platina upgrade done recently has only cannibalised sales of the existing bike and has failed to generate significant additional sales.”

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Source:http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1210592

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