Well the ubiquitous scooter of course! Bajaj was the undisputed 'Scooter King' in India and there used to be wait lists and black marketing to own this coveted vehicle. Somewhere down the line Hero Honda swept the market away with its motorcycles. They were more stylish (compared to the scooter), more functional and stole a march over the fuddy -duddy scooters. However,Bajaj refused to acknowledge this and kept protecting its scooter kingdom whereas Hero Honda on the one hand and Kinetic Honda on the other hand (with its ungeared and more stylish scooters) was reshaping and reclaiming the two wheeler market. Bajaj realised this mistake a tad too late and started playing catchup. It did some brilliant work with the Pulsar and came back strongly in the two wheeler err..motorcycle sweepstakes. It thought it had made a remarkable comeback (which indeed it had! but in the motorcycle segment and not the two wheeler segment).
They say History repeats itself. So again the Two wheeler market is undergoing a
transformation with ungeared scooters (check out the success of Honda with Activa and Hero Honda with Pleasure) and electric mobikes looking to undermine the hegemony of the motorcycle segment.
Is Bajaj commiting the same mistake again? Is it again running full steam with Blinkers On when the race has changed or does Rajiv Bajaj have something new up his sleeve?
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