Piaggio Vehicles Pvt Ltd, which markets and sells Vespa and Aprilia scooters in India, has posted sales growth of a whopping 90.97 per cent in the April to June period of 2017. According to data published by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Piaggio sold 13,572 scooters in the three-month period. In June 2017 alone, Piaggio sold 4,515 scooters, accounting for 94 per cent growth over the same month a year ago. The impressive growth numbers are on the back of increasing consumer interest of the Aprilia SR150 scooter as well as Vespa 150 scooters.
Over the last financial year too, Piaggio recorded healthy growth in sales in the same category of scooters. Clearly, consumer interest in the Indian scooter space is not just limited to the 100-110 cc scooters, and premium scooters like the Aprilia and Vespa models are attracting quite a bit of interest. The top players in the Indian scooter space like Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), TVS Motor Company and even Hero MotoCorp don't have any models in the 150 cc class. Honda offers the Activa 125, but both TVS and Hero only offer 110 cc scooters in their product portfolio.
(The Honda Activa 4G is the largest selling scooter model, but Honda scooters are limited to between 110-125 cc)
Of course, in the larger scheme of things, volumes in the scooter segment are still led by the 110 cc models, with Honda selling over 9.73 lakh scooters in the 100-125 cc segment in the same period. In the 125 cc segment, Piaggio sold 5,279 scooters, accounting for nearly 39 per cent of overall Piaggio sales. But Piaggio sold 8,293 150 cc scooters in the same period, a 61 per cent share of overall sales.
Clearly, there's a growing market for premium and slightly more powerful scooters, and Piaggio being the only player offering 150 cc scooters in the market right now, there certainly seems to be scope for more growth in the horizon.
