Yamaha launches Mio J and Mio Fino in Indonesia

Yamaha added Mio J and Mio Fino to already successful Mio scooter series. Yamaha Mio and Mio Fino were showcased at Auto Expo 2012. Both the new models are launched in response to Indonesian consumers who need fashionable and technological advanced scooter. The delivery for both of the scooters is going to start from the 14^th February (Valentine Day). Yamaha Motors Indonesia is planning to sell 25,000 units a month for Mio J which will gradually increase to 50,000 units a month.

Yamaha Mio J is an advanced version of Mio Series and equipped with Yamaha’s class leading technologies. Mio J has got YMJET-FI (Yamaha Mixture Jet-Fuel Injection), DiASil cylinder and forged piston (All of this features we see on Yamaha R15). It is equipped with 115cc (113.7 cc) 4-stroke, 2 valve, SOHC engine. The engine is able to generate maximum power of 7.75 PS @ maximum 8,500 rpm and maximum torque of 8.5NM @ 5,000 rpm. Apart from this it has got new designing, DRL (Daytime running light) headlight system, wide and longer seat, increased luggage space, larger fuel tank and new speedometer. The new model is able to generate 30% more fuel efficiency compared to the previous version. Yamaha has launched this model at a price of 12.7 million Indonesia Rupiah (Rs. 70,500).

Mio Fino is a fashionable unisex scooter and it’s targeted to especially younger woman. Mio Fino has three more themes like fashion, sport and classic. Fino has got seven colors choices cyan Fashion, Fashion Pink, Classic Red, Classic Black, Black Sports, Sports Blue and Sports Red.   Fino is equipped with Automatic Headlight On (Aho), fuel meter, speedometer, front pocket, and tail light. It has got 113cc, 2 valve, 4-stroke SOHC engine which generates maximum power of 8.35PS @ maximum rpm of 8,000 and maximum torque of 7.84 Nm @ 7,000 rpm. It has been launched at 13.5 million Indonesia Rupiah (Rs. 74,500) for Fino Sporty. Yamaha Indonesia is targeting sales of 20,000 units a month for Fino series.

Indonesia is world’s third largest two wheeler market with market size of 8 million units a year. Automatic scooters accounts for 50% of this total market.  Mio was the first automatic scooter launched by Yamaha in Indonesian market in 2003. Mio changed the trend to automatic scooters in Indonesia where manual transmission scooters were ruling the market. More than 4.7 million units have been sold of Mio series scooters till the date.

Noteworthy: Yamaha SZ TV Commercial

Yamaha SZ series is another successful product from Yamaha after R15 and FZ series. The SZ series has got good response across the country and it helped Yamaha to gain market share in Sports commuter segment. This is also another reason for having 30-40% growth in sales by Yamaha compared to last year. To strengthen its position in sports commuter segment Yamaha has now came up with new SZ TV commercial.

The New SZ TV commercial is mostly based on similar concept of Onida’s iconic tagline ‘Neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride’. This is concept of having things which others desire. The new TV commercial shows a guy speaking to her girlfriend that, people are always interested in others thing and take her on ride to show the same. There are a number of examples where he shows her while riding and when they stop on traffic signal every other motorcycle owner is looking at Yamaha SZ. The guy feels pride of owning Yamaha SZ in the end. Have a look to new commercial posted above.

KTM Duke 200 is Getting a Good Response

KTM Duke 200 is getting tremendous response across the country. There are only 15 days have passed since Duke 200 is launched on 24^th January 2012, but KTM showrooms (Erstwhile Probiking showrooms) are flooded with inquiries. The company initially decided the booking amount of Rs. 30,000 but it was reduced to Rs. 20,000 when Duke 200 hit the showrooms. The booking amount was reduced to encourage more buyers.

The company is also charging Rs. 3,000 as cancellation charges if the booking is canceled, to avoid speculative bookings and timely delivery for genuine buyers. The waiting period is ranging from 30-90 days depending on the location of showrooms. The delivery is expected to start within 2-3 weeks time. KTM Duke 200 is the third motorcycle which is seeing such an encouraging response from the buyers after Honda CBR250R and Yamaha R15 V2.0.

Duke 200 is the first offering from Austrian motorcycle manufacturer KTM which comes with 200cc engine and power of 25 bhp. It would be easy for Duke 200 to start with 2,000 units a month which is very good figure, considering its price. It seems that KTM Duke 200 may outscore competition in terms of bookings. However, it is to be seen how it performs in longer run against the competition.

Reasons Why Bajaj Boxer 150 Did Not Succeed as Expected

What is the difference between doing things right (efficiency) and doing the right things (Effectiveness)? In order to launch a successful product or to make a successful company, effectiveness and efficiency are required to be out in place together. If you are effective but not efficient, there is a chance that efficient competitor will follow your strategy and will take on you. On the contrary if you’re efficient but not effective, the effective competitor will take on you. In Indian two wheeler industry, we have example of two such companies – Hero Moto Corp and Bajaj Auto. Bajaj Auto, a company which operates at 20% EBITDA margin is the highest so far in the industry. It is the most efficient company in the two wheeler space. Hero Moto Corp which sells half a million units every month, 6 million units in a year, highest in the two wheeler industry and it is world’s largest two wheeler company. It is one of the most effective companies in two wheeler industry.

Hero Motocorp has a strong foothold in the rural India. It commands very large pie of rural two wheeler sales. Nearly half of the company’s sale comes from rural part of the country. What more to say Hero MotoCorp.’s rural sale is more than Bajaj Auto’s total domestic sale. If you want to challenge Hero Motocorp., you need to have a strong rural motorcycle. Bajaj Auto realized this fact sometime ago and launched the Boxer 150cc (Bharat Motorcycle) on 26th August 2011.

A purpose built rural motorcycle which sports a 150cc engine, torque of 12 Nm, wider tyres, larger seat which can accommodate three people and a price tag of around INR 42,000 ex-showroom Delhi. The motorcycle fetched the company a business of 10,0000 units a month in the initial two months; however the volumes were down by almost 7,000 units for last two, three months. This is a very big disappointment considering the brand ‘Boxer’, which was leader in its segment before it was discontinued way back in the year 2004 for the Indian market. So what is wrong with Boxer 150cc (Bharat Motorcycle)? Why it is not able to clock sustainable larger amount of volumes? Let’s have a closer look at some of the reasons.

Soft Marketing

How many people are aware that Boxer 150cc is launched? Certainly, not a large number of people know that Boxer 150cc is in the market even after nearly 6 months of its launch. This is a reason of soft marketing. Boxer 150cc did not get the enough push on the marketing front. It is to be understood that this is a rural motorcycle and needs to be marketed in a different manner. However, Bajaj Auto did not do any effective rural marketing campaign to provide enough ground for Boxer 150cc to take on the competition. Even the Bajaj Auto website does not have Boxer displayed anywhere. If I’m not wrong, there is no such TV commercial featuring the Boxer 150cc and even if it is there I am not aware about it (Another example for too much of soft launch) I did search for a video and I got the below one which is enough to show the power of Boxer 150cc.

Bajaj Auto could have made a TV commercial highlighting the unique features of Boxer 150cc and could have shown it on Doordarshan which has largest reach even in remote villages. You can take example of Hero Motocorp.’s rural marketing campaign Har Gaon, Har aangon (Hindi for Every village, Every Home) under which Hero Honda dealers met Sarpanches, Headmasters, aanganwadi workers who influence buyer’s decision in rural segment to sell Hero Motocorp motorcycles. This is the campaign which has given Hero Motocorp a strong foothold in rural India. By far this is a marketing practice for rural India, which is more effective than the TV commercial as rural sales drive more through Word Of Mouth publicity than advertising.

Brand Positioning

Bajaj Auto re-launched the Boxer in 150cc avatar. This can also be a reason for lower sales. It would have been an easy job to start with a 100cc motorcycle in rural segment but Bajaj Auto chose 150cc to differentiate it from others. Now a 150cc can work inversely if the market is not prepared. The 100cc motorcycle accounts a very large pie or of total rural sales in India. Bajaj Auto could have gone with 100cc Boxer first which would have helped the product to establish itself. Once the brand establishes itself they could have launched 150cc version as a part of its brand extension.

We can also take an example of Discover brand which started with 100cc version and then extended to 150cc and 125cc. Today, around half of the Discover brand sales come from 125cc and 150cc versions. The brand would not have been that much successful, if it would have started with 150cc version first. Further, when you go for differentiation strategy you always need to have strong marketing practices highlighting the differentiation points. It helps the product or service to establish itself as differentiation strategy is mostly targeted to niche segment. As we can see Boxer had very soft launch which resulted in lower brand awareness to target market.

Bajaj Auto also has Platina in 100cc entry level segment, however this is an urban brand and Boxer is a rural brand. Hence, there were very lower chances of brand cannibalization (“When two brands in the same product line, offered by same player target same market segment and compete with each other by eating away the market share without adding any value to the marketer.”) here if Bajaj Auto could have launched 100cc Boxer. It is also to be noted that 100cc version of Boxer was successful in India and currently it is successful when it comes to the export market too.

High Price, Low Fuel Efficiency and Low Dealer Margins

Boxer is the cheapest 150cc motorcycle available in the Indian market. However it is still 20% more expensive compared to basic 100cc motorcycle like CD-Dawn. Further due to 150cc version it also has lower level of fuel efficiency. The rural India is extremely conscious about the fuel efficiency; hence it might be a cause of having lower sales. It also has lower dealer margins compared to other brands like Discover and Pulsar which makes the dealers more interested in selling Discover and Pulsar brand compared to the Boxer brand.

Corrective Actions

As far as the product is concerned, the 5-6 month old owners are well satisfied with the composition of power and fuel efficiency offered by Boxer 150cc, so there are no such major changes required when it comes to the product front. As far as marketing strategy is concerned, the company has now started a marketing campaign in around 16,000 villages. In the new campaign, the company is showcasing Boxer 150cc on demo van and offering customers a test ride thorough which one can have a ride experience of the Boxer 150cc. However, what have been missed is having large customer base in initial stage. If this would have been done in the initial stage, the company might have had more customers aware about the brand and its features which are capable of generating positive word of mouth publicity, thereby ensuring sustainable sales for the future.

Conclusion

Having the right marketing strategy is an equally important factor with having a right product. Boxer 150cc (Bharat motorcycle) might be the right product for rural India but it has not been backed by a right marketing strategy. Bajaj Auto considers Pulsar as its centre of gravity. However, it should not ignore the other market opportunities which come with Boxer brand. Rural India has lots of potential of growth and it is still in nascent stage. We may see rapid urbanization in the coming years but still Rural India’s growth will outpace urban India growth as far as two wheelers and more specifically motorcycle is concerned. Further, Boxer is also equally profitable (20% EBITDA) and commands brand premium in Africa despite the fact that it is an entry level motorcycle and operates in highly price sensitive market. Boxer has always helped Bajaj Auto be it the time from transformation of scooter manufacturer to
motorcycle manufacture since the year 2008-09 when Bajaj Auto’s sales tapered drastically. It is one of the fastest growing brands in export market. Hope the new marketing campaign will help Boxer 150cc to establish itself in the Indian market.

Bajaj to Come Up With Bikes Upto 700cc in India

Bajaj Auto Limited, the nation’s second largest player when it comes to two – wheelers has decided to bring in more high displacement bikes from KTM stable into India. Bajaj presently owns around 40 per cent share in KTM, Austrian bike maker known for its naked street bikes all across the globe.

The company will be launching bikes in the range of 200cc to 700cc in the coming years. Duke 200 was already launched for the Indian market a couple of weeks back and marks the entry of KTM into the Indian market. There is of course a great potential for these bikes here depending on the price tag they’ll be bearing along their necks.

Bajaj, though is on a lead in the race with its other counterparts like Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki, it becomes mandatory of it to come up with new products which will enhance the company in maintaining its current position and slowly to climb up the ladder. Bajaj Auto Limiter is interested in getting the leadership position in the premium bike segment in the years to come.

Bajaj aims to position the Pulsar in the value-for-money sports bike segment which has hot an amazing potential and Pulsar brand is already leading the race in this segment. Its Austrian partner KTM’s motorcycles will be fighting at the premium end of the market.

“We share the same development process with KTM, so you can expect there will be ‘a much bigger Pulsar’ next year, because we think the market is at an inflection point (at the premium end) and we are in a good position to take advantage with these two brands,” Managing Director, Mr. Rajiv Bajaj said.

The company will also be launching a 350 cc Pulsar for the Indian market next year.Now that should be great news for the PulsarManics out here. Bajaj said the company will come out with 350cc Pulsar next year and it is exploring even bigger motorcycles under the Pulsar brand. “There will be a 350 cc Duke next year, so you can expect something similar with the Pulsar next year. And going forward, in 2014-15 there will be even bigger KTM and even bigger Pulsar,” Bajaj said.

The company is also gearing up with the capacity of 1 00,000 units at its Chakan plant to cater the demand created for the company by its new range of Pulsars and the KTM motorcycles. The month of January saw to new bike launched from Bajaj – Duke 200 and the Pulsar 200NS (Naked Sport). Both these bikes have been jointly developed by Bajaj and KTM. The two companies are likely to jointly bring in 350 cc and 690 cc motorcycles under the Bajaj banner over the next few years. The joint R&D for vehicle and engine development will help the company to maintain the cost and help itself maintain a 20 per cent EBIDTA margins.

On the pricing front which determines a company’s success in the Indian market, price positioning will be similar in bigger models for the Pulsar and KTM brand, the Indian brand at the lower end and KTM at the premium end compared with that of the entire Pulsar line – up.

The next generation Pulsar motorcycles (200cc, 350 cc and above) will co – exist with the current range of Pulsars. With bigger motorcycles expected from the Japanese competition, experts say this Bajaj – KTM twin strategy should work for the company to cater to different end of the market. We of course, agree with this point here. The alliance between these two companies should be doing wonders for this company in the years to come.

Bajaj said the new motorcycles would help the company increase market share to 30 – 32 per cent, from a market share of 26 per cent as of now, as the market for premium – end motorcycles is expanding at a very rapid pace.

Auto experts say that with a rise in disposable income, the number of buyers will grow, but the segment will continue to be niche as the price bracket exceeds INR 1 lakh.

“The market is growing, yet it forms less than 1 per cent of the overall motorcycle market in the country. The sports bike category will continue to grow in double digits and there will be takers, yet it will form only 1 per cent to 2 per cent of the market and it will be niche category, at least in the medium term,” said Mahantesh Sabarad, auto analyst with Fortune Broking.

Bajaj Auto, which has an export turnover of nearly 6,500 crore with almost 1.5 million vehicles shipped annually sees the similar strategy being played out in the global markets too.

“I think this strategy of KTM-Pulsar acting together in the sports segment is a valid strategy anywhere in the world not just in India. We will look at leveraging this in many of our overseas markets in Latin America, Africa and South East Asia,” said Bajaj.

M&M Sells Its Stake in Engines Engineering

According to news reported by moneycontrol.com Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is selling its entire stake in Engines Engineering back to its original promoter Alberto Strazzari. M&M is selling its entire stake at good amount of premium which it bought in the year 2008 with the aim to strengthening its R&D capabilities for Mahindra Two Wheelers. Engines Engineering is the same company which has done work of fixing Sattlio’s gear box.

Engines Engineering is Europe’s number One motorcycle designer. It provides full range of activities starting from a basic idea on a blank sheet to a finished product on the road. It is a one stop solution for conception, design, styling, online assembly, industrialization and marketing. It’s client name includes some of the prestigious name in motorcycling world like Honda, Yamaha, Ducati, Benelli, Gilera etc.

According to reports the reason for stake sell is Engine Engineering’s client base, which is not comfortable with Engines Engineering close proximity with Mahindra two wheelers and Mahindra Engineering services. They questioned the possibility of Intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement. However, M&M said that it’s baseless fear and the IPR are protected with adequate firewalls. Engines Engineering will now act as independent advisor and consultant to M&M.

Knock – A Hidden Peril For Engine

Generally, knock has been recognized as particular kind of sound comes out from engine at the time of sudden acceleration. But majority people don’t know about the exact particularity of this sound. Moreover, they are also unaware about the source from where this sound comes out in the engine. Another rumour about knock is its relation with sudden acceleration and sudden retardation. Knock is not at all a result of acceleration or retardation. One more blunder I heard from a mechanic was very shocking. He said “knocking does not take place in single cylinder engine”. It’s totally erroneous though accepted by many mechanics and never treated seriously in private as well as authorised service stations.

No doubt, “particular kind of sound from the engine” is the definition of knock but it’s not precise and complete. Strictly speaking, knocking is a phenomenon that can be defined as spontaneous ignition or autoignition of fresh charge in the cylinder at various pin-point locations. Autoignition is possible when any fuel reaches to its self ignition temperature by any means of heat.

Mechanism of Knock

Above diagram shows the normal combustion process. For easy understanding, let us assume that the spark plug is located in the centre of the cylinder. This is visible in both the views of combustion chamber in above diagram. A first flame front is generated with the help of spark. The flame front travels across the combustion chamber from top to bottom and from centre to cylinder walls. This pass through of flame front is shown by orange shades.

The advancing flame front compresses the unburned charges shown by blue colour. Simultaneously, temperature of this unburned fresh charge also increases because of compression as well as heat transfer from burned charge. If the temperature of this unburned charge had not reached its self ignition temperature, the charge would not autoignite and the flame will advance further. Finally all the charge will ignite and process converted in to normal complete combustion.

Now suppose, somehow the unburned charge reaches to its self ignition temperature and also has sufficient time to ignite itself. The same case is illustrated in above diagram. The unburned blue coloured fresh charge starts self ignition because of temperature rise. At this moment, two different sparks take place in the cylinder but obviously at different instant. Because of this autoignition, another flame front starts travelling in the opposite direction to the main flame front. When the two flame fronts collide, a severe pressure pulse is generated. This instant but huge disturbance can force the walls of the combustion chamber to vibrate and produces direct blow on the engine structure. This blow is sufficient enough to generate a thudding sound which a human ear can detect. Only because of this thudding sound, it is known as “Knocking”.

Effect of Knocking

The impact of knock on the engine components and structure can cause engine failure. Below photo shows effect of knocking on piston structure.

In addition, the noise from engine vibration is always objectionable. The pressure difference in the combustion chamber causes the gas to vibrate and scrub the chamber walls causing increased loss of heat to the coolant. Fuel consumption of engine increases drastically as heat energy is lost during knocking. The same reason also affects the power output which is observable at the time of acceleration.

Factors Affecting Knock

From the above discussion on knock, it may be seen that four major factors are involved in either producing or preventing knock. These are the temperature, pressure, density of the unburned charge and the time factors.

Temperature factor includes inlet temperature of the mixture and temperature of the combustion chamber walls. Increase in inlet temperature of the mixture makes the charge more vaporized than the required at the end of compression. This increases the tendency of knocking. Temperature of the combustion chamber walls plays a predominant role in knocking. In order to prevent knocking the hot spot in the combustion chamber should be avoided. Since, the spark plug and exhaust valve are two hottest parts in the combustion chamber; they mostlyconverted in to sources of autoignition after a long run. Furthermore, most of the two wheelers use air cooling which is not at all efficient to cool these two hottest parts. This is the main reason because of which a single cylinder engine could also have knocking problem.

Pressure factor includes the final pressure of fresh charge that it can reach after completion of compression stroke. Obviously, high pressure again converted in to high temperature factor and boosts the knocking process. No doubt, pressure factor is not at possible to control externally. It depends only on design parameters of engine.

Density factor comprises mass of inducted charge and fuel-air ratio. A reduction in the mass of the inducted charge into the cylinder of an engine by throttling reduces both temperature and density of the charge at the time of ignition. This decreases the tendency of knocking.

The flame speeds are affected by fuel-air ratio. Also the flame temperature and reaction time are different for different fuel-air ratios. So tendency of fresh charge to reach up to its self ignition temperature directly depends on the composition of that charge. As the carburettor or injection systems are the only responsible components for fuel-air ratios, it is advisable to keep them cleaned and tuned to avoid knocking.

Time factors consist of engine speed and spark timing. An increase in engine speed increases the turbulence of the mixture considerably resulting in increased flame speed, and reduces the time available for preflame reactions. Hence knocking tendency is reduced at higher speed. Adversely, prolonged high speed increases working temperature of engine and increases amount of hot spots, so prolonged and constant high speed should be avoided to minimize the knocking. Wrong spark timing always leads to incomplete combustion. This incomplete combustion can be possible either as pre-ignition or post-ignition. Both these incomplete combustion increases knocking tendency.

Miscellaneous factors include location of spark plug and octane value of the fuel. In order to have a minimum flame travel, the spark plug is located at proper place in the combustion chamber. DTSI, DTS-SI and now three spark plugs (Pulsar 200) are few of the examples where efforts have been made to reduce flame travel by igniting the fresh charge from different locations, of course in proper manner. High octane fuel has the higher self ignition temperature and low preflame reactivity which reduces the tendency of knocking.

How to Recognize Knock

Following are some symptoms which can help to identify the knock.

• Metallic sound in harmony with engine firing
• Sound comes out after long running
• Sound disappears at idle speed
• Drastic drop in fuel efficiency
• Drop in power output
• Engine run with high temperature and noise

It is very true that one has to develop some skills to identify the particular sound of knock. Many videos are available on youtube where you can have idea about knock sound and you can save your engine by identifying the knock in preliminary stage. I hope this will be useful to you all in future. Waiting for your valuable comments.