Friday, September 4, 2015

Bajaj Auto's Exports are back on track.

About three months back I had posted a report on Bajaj Auto, where we had noted the dip in sales (both domestic & exports) for the company during the months of January & February of this year. This dip had impacted the company's performance during Q4 of last fiscal. Bajaj's domestic sales recovered sharply during the months of March to May, but exports started recovering only from April. After remaining steady around the 1.6 lakhs mark for 4 months upto July, Bajaj's exports have posted it's strongest monthly number till date of 1,81,658 for August'15. This is smart recovery & the company's exports are well & truly on the growth path again, though at a smaller percentage on a larger base of last year.


For the first 5 months of this fiscal, Bajaj Auto has sold a total of about 16.85 lakh units, domestic & export combined and 2-wheeler & 3-wheeler combined, which is a Y-o-Y growth of about 2.5%. While domestic sales have grown by just about 0.5%, exports have grown by about 5%. In fact, this year we could see Bajaj's exports number to be higher than domestic for the full year for the first time. In FY'15 Bajaj exported 18.06 lakh units compared to sales of over 20 lakh units in the domestic market. During the first 5 months, Exports are at 8.23 lakhs and domestic sales at 8.62 lakhs, than means the gap has reduced from over 10% in FY'15 to just about 5% during this fiscal.

Coming to segment performance, Bajaj's motorcycle sales have stabilised this year after posting over 4% drop during FY'15. In the April-August period, Bajaj's motorcycle sales have increased by about 1.5%, which could be driven by new product launches done a few months back. Bajaj's CV sales, i.e. 3-wheelers, are higher by about 9% this year again, after posting a healthy 14% growth last year. Bajaj Auto had underperformed massively last year compared to it's peers like Honda and TVS and even Hero. But this year almost all of them are struggling for growth. Hero has posted negative growth for 2 or 3 months in a row now. Honda's & TVS's growth is now down to low single digits. So Bajaj is not far from it's competitors this year in terms of growth numbers.

It will be interesting to watch how domestic sales pan out in the coming months, especially because rural market constitutes a very large portion of sales and demand there is expected to be muted because of lower-than-normal rains in about half of the country. New launches have given some good momentum to Bajaj's sales and all competitors are planning new launches in the coming months. All eyes will be on the upcoming festival season. Also there are reports that Bajaj's Quadricycle is undergoing ARAI certification. If approved the vehicle could be launched before the end of this calendar year.

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