After years of impressive growth, it seems made-in-India manufacturer Royal Enfield is finally starting to slow down.
For almost 10 years, Royal Enfield has been the talk of the motorcycle industry due to its impressive sales growth. After constructing new manufacturing facilities, the manufacturer went from being a small-volume niche company to a serious player on the global market.
However, while its bikes are becoming more popular all over the world, the home market is still the most important one for Royal Enfield. And, with the whole Indian automotive sector slowing down, Royal Enfield’s been caught up in that slump.
In the April-to-June financial quarter of 2019, Royal Enfield saw its profit drop 21.6 per cent when compared to the year before. Its total revenue was down 7 per cent, and earnings down 24 per cent. In July, the company saw its monthly sales drop below 50,000. It’s the first time sales have been that low since May, 2016. For comparison, while Royal Enfield sold around 48,000 motorcycles this July, it sold 67,000 bikes last July.
Multiple factors are being blamed for the slowdown, mostly to do with India’s economy. However, it’s also worth pointing out that despite Royal Enfield’s recent introduction of its 650 cc twins, and the Himalayan before that, it’s still got a fairly limited lineup. Also, there’s increasing competition in India, as manufacturers from other countries are getting their own in-country manufacturing figured out, enabling them to sell motorcycles in India at lower prices, competing much more easily with Royal Enfield.
What’s Royal Enfield going to do? There’s plenty of buzz about a new, low-cost model coming from Royal Enfield. Royal Enfield is also continuing to work hard at pushing into new countries, and developing new retail stories in India to boost consumer interest.
Heh. They just dropped to a July unit sales figure which equals what Ducati is on track to sell for the entire year, and those figures are chiefly a result of the Scrambler and Hypermotard.
The sportbike market is dropping.
They should come out with a side care model 650 cc or bigger, I am getting up there in years and would like a third wheel, but do not want a trike or spider as you are sitting in the middle of the lane and can’t see around the trucks to get passed, and the trikes have the front wheel in the middle of the lane which is just plane dangerous. I have had a couple of Urals and love them but no dealers on the east coast and they were very high maintenance. Come on Royal Enfield give me a 3 wheeler that I can feel safe in and take my 150 lb dog with me.
Rockland Wheels in Rockland east of Ottawa has Royal Enfields and I just purchased a 2019 Himalayan there. Go see them. They are very knowledgeable and very nice!
where are the 650s can find them anywhere if they want to sell bike get them out where the bikers can see them also over priced
“where are the 650s can find them anywhere if they want to sell bike get them out where the bikers can see them also over priced”
There’s a dealer in Acton and a new one in Lakefield (if you’re in Ontario), hopefully there will be more in the near future.
Interesting – the 350s and 500s are pretty long in the tooth, maybe its time for an upgrade ?