Hero Moto aims to sell more than 1.3 million bikes this festive season

Hero MotoCorp, a homegrown two-wheeler manufacturer, is expecting double-digit growth this festive season. Last year, the company sold 12 lakh units during the festive season. This year, the company has already seen a 30% increase in bookings and a 20% increase in enquiries so far.

Niranjan Gupta, CEO of Hero MotoCorp, while speaking to CNBC TV18, said, "Our priority right now is to ensure a good festive season. We still feel there is a lot of room for growth in the core entry-level segment and therefore we are trying to expand the core portfolio with festive offers and low EMI schemes.”

The company is also banking on deliveries of the Harley Davidson X440 and the new Karizma to drive sales. The brand will also be launching a Hero MotoCorp bike based on the X440 platform in Q4 of this fiscal year.

Hero MotoCorp has launched festive offers and incentives for dealership employees on all Hero MotoCorp products, but the biggest offers are on entry-level motorcycles like the HF Deluxe. The company is ramping up production to deliver on 25,000 bookings for the Harley Davidson X440 and approximately 14,000 bookings for the Karizma. While deliveries of the X440 have begun, deliveries for the Karizma will begin later this month. Gupta also said that this year Hero MotoCorp has 6-7 new products over the portfolio that existed in 2022.

After taking over earlier this year, Niranjan Gupta announced a strategy to change gears at the company. The two-wheeler manufacturer reduced 10% of its workforce through a VRS scheme. “Margins are on a healthy platform now and the focus is on growth. While agility and competitiveness measures will continue, but the singular focus now is on growth, growth and growth. We are not looking at reducing employee strength further and will be working on training talent for future”, said Gupta.

The CEO also said they do not see the need for any significant price hike in the near term and any price increase would be marginal. This comes after Hero MotoCorp recently raised prices by 1% across its model range. “Inflation has been around 6% in the last 12 months and we have increased prices to that extent”, he said.

Ramping up touchpoints for Hero MotoCorp’s Vida electric scooters to 100 places by the end of 2023 is a priority for the company’s CEO. Gupta said that Hero MotoCorp is looking to ramp up electric vehicle sales from Q4 onwards and is planning to launch 3-4 products in the affordable EV segment in 4-5 quarters.