Top 5 Two-Wheeler Manufacturers In Terms Of Sales During Lockdown

With zero sales in the month of April, the two-wheeler market is limping back to normalcy in the month of May with the manufacturers dispatching vehicles to their dealers who were now open for business. India’s leading two-wheeler company Hero MotoCorp continued to be in pole position, despite the severe disruptions caused by the countrywide lockdown due to Covid-19.

In the month of May, Hero MotoCorp sold 108,848 units of motorcycles and scooters in the domestic market.  As most manufacturers began production only partially during May, the wholesale numbers are significantly lower when compared to May ’19. All six manufacturing facilities of the Company in India – at Dharuhera and Gurugram in Haryana, Haridwar in Uttarakhand, Neemrana in Rajasthan, Halol in Gujarat and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh – have now resumed operations with limited production.

Coming in second was Honda Motorcycle and Scooters India, which sold 54,000 units during the month. Incidentally, India is no longer Honda’s number 1 two-wheeler market globally, losing the spot to Indonesia. May 2020 saw Honda’s entire ecosystem including dealers & suppliers rebooting their operations. Over 70% of Honda dealers have by now resumed Sales & Service operations. Parallelly, as 100% of Honda’s 308 supplier plants got approvals to restart operations, Honda also recommenced production at its Narsapura plant (Karnataka) from 25th May, with other 3 plants at Manesar (Haryana), Tapukara (Rajasthan) and Vithalapur (Gujarat) following from the 1st week of June in a staggered manner.

TVS Motors was third with domestic sales of 41,067 units. TVS Motor Company resumed its operations in India across all its factories in Hosur, Mysuru and Nalagarh starting from May 06, 2020. The company also saw the opening of dealerships across the county and overseas in the last 2 weeks of May and increasing further into June

Pune based Bajaj Auto was fourth with the domestic two-wheeler sales seeing a dip of 81% at 39,286 units last month as against 2,05,721 units in May last year. The Company has recently brought back its Chetak scooter but in an EV avatar.

Royal Enfield, the maker of the popular 650cc twins sold 18,429 units, a 69% degrowth compared to last year. Royal Enfield announced the resumption of operations at its manufacturing facilities in India starting May 6, 2020. Royal Enfield’s manufacturing unit at Oragadam, near Chennai, India has started operating in a staggered manner, with minimal staff over a single shift. The other two manufacturing facilities - Tiruvottiyur and Vallam Vadagal - will also commence production soon. The company also announced that all its corporate locations including offices in Chennai, Gurgaon and the UK Technical Centre will continue to remain closed, and employees will continue working from home. Around 120 dealerships have begun partial operations and the rest will resume functioning soon.