Bajaj Auto rules out tie-up with Harley-Davidson

Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto, has ruled out any tie-up with American motorcycle brand Harley-Davidson. Bajaj said the company could not engage with Harley due to their partnership with KTM, Husqvarna and Triumph. Bajaj owns 48% in KTM and it has a non-equity partnership with Triumph. Harley-Davidson has announced plans to exit India and there were reports of Harley talking to Bajaj Auto for a partnership. In an interview with television channel, CNBC-TV18, on Monday, Bajaj said, they could not engage with Harley-Davidson because of these partnerships. Harley did not take off in India due to the high price points, Bajaj pointed out. Bajaj said they had succeeded with the KTM brand with sales of 3,00,000 units a year and becoming the number one premium brand in the country. On Bajaj Auto’s performance in the second quarter, Bajaj said it was a big relief for them that sales would be in-line with what they had projected in July and that it would be around one million units of two- and three-wheelers during Q2FY21.

All the strong export markets had come back and they would be shipping 2,00,000 units in September 2020 and 2,50,000 units in October 2020, he said.  Bajaj also plans to increase sales of entry-level motorcycles and would be launching the differentiated Platina and CT-100 bikes, which starts rolling out from October 2020, while they could sell 2,00,000 units of Pulsar in October 2020. Bajaj said his company would be looking at sales of 1.3 million vehicles in Q3FY21, if there were no supply constraints as lockdown had impacted the tier II suppliers, while tier I suppliers were facing labour shortage. The Bajaj Auto MD was also critical of the arbitrary decision making and retrospective withdrawal of Merchandise Exports from India Scheme, which made matters worse.