KTM to sell 10,000 bikes

Pune January 20: Bajaj Auto, which acquired a 49% stake in Austria's sports motorcycle maker KTM 10 years ago, is reviving up a road map for the joint venture for the next decade.

Rajiv Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Auto, had talks with Stefan Pierre, the chief executive officer of KTM, on the roadmap for the next 10 years.

"Stefan was here yesterday and we spent the whole day together discussing what has to be done in the next 10 years," said Mr. Bajaj while unveiling a model of KTM bike.

Apart from increasing the product portfolio, which will come with higher price tags, KTM has now entered Indonesia to sell its bikes.

KTM introduced MY17 KTM RC 390, priced at Rs. 2,25,300 and KTM RC 200, priced at Rs. 1,71,740 .

Mr. Bajaj said there could be 500-800cc bikes in the future from the KTM stable.

On the Indonesia market expansion, Mr. Bajaj said between April 2017 and March 2018, the company plans to sell 5,000 to 10,000 bikes.

"Earlier, we were selling Bajaj bikes from Kawasaki outlets, but now we will sell KTM bikes from KTM outlets," Mr. Bajaj said.

Introduced in 2012, KTM has become one of the fastest growing sports motorcycle brands with over 1,00,000 bikes hitting Indian roads.

The company said the growth has been spurred by a large network of 325 exclusive KTM showrooms which will grow to 450 in about a year’s time.

Amit Nandi, President, Probiking, Bajaj Auto, said the recent demonetization exercise impacted sales in November and December, but the situation improved in January.

"November and December were slow but January seems a lot better though it was not what we had expected. We hope things to ease out over the next 2-3 months," Mr. Nandi said.