Indian Motorcycles won’t be going the Harley-Davidson route as far as expanding in India is concerned. The US-based premium motorcycle maker completes a decade in India this year and the luxury brand continues to sell high-performance cruisers to an affluent clientele. However, unlike its biggest rival, Harley-Davidson, the brand has no plans to expand into the mass market space.

Will continue to retail premium motorcycles

Speaking to HT Auto in an exclusive conversation, Lalit Sharma, Managing Director, Polaris India, said that the brand aimed to maintain a premium niche selling to a high net worth customer base, even though the volumes have been restricted. When asked if the company was exploring going the Harley way to partner with a domestic two-wheeler manufacturer for more affordable motorcycles, Sharma said there was no such plan in the short term.

“As of now answer would be no, we are not targeting the mass market as of now," said Sharma. “We want to maintain that kind of premium and we have a very huge customer base and we want to maintain that as of now. But the strategies are changing and creating every year, so you never know the index in a few years. Sometimes companies can go in a different direction."

The switch to more mass-market models has been Harley-Davidson’s new strategy globally while keeping the premium, traditional cruiser range intact in its lineup. While its machines have been modernised, the American motorcycle brand has been exploring newer avenues with partnerships globally including Benelli in China and Hero MotoCorp in India. Both yielded Harley’s most accessible products yet in the form of the X350 and X440 respectively.

With Hero, Harley has been able to achieve economies of scale which would otherwise have been difficult to achieve, something it tried with the Street 500 & 750 nearly a decade ago. The Harley-Davidson X440 is the brand’s most accessible offering anywhere in the world priced between ₹2.40 lakh and ₹2.80 lakh (ex-showroom) in India. In comparison, Indian Motorcycles has a much higher entry ticket to its range with the Scout series, a model line that not only helps bolster the brand’s sales globally but is also its bestseller in India.

“Everybody knows Indian because of Scout [in India]. So, when we look at the Scout in India, the fan following and the kind of attraction we got with that particular brand name, it was fantastic. And if you look from an India perspective, it's a more practical bike. I mean, if you talk about the US highways versus Indian highways, it's very different, right? In the US, our motorcycles are fantastic, no problem at all. They are air-cooled engines around 800-900 cc, you see, no worry about it. But in India, you have a lot of issues like traffic congestion. They're not practical city bikes, they're big bikes and meant to be driven on the big highways. So, I think India has a lot of more different challenges versus the much-evolved markets."

That said, high net worth individuals (HNIs) seem to be lapping up Indian bikes, says Sharma, “HNIs love the brand, the vintage, the classic Roadmaster, we sold good numbers of motorcycles in the market and to extremely premium customers. It’s not mass segment, of course, the pricing is pretty high and wherever we are selling, we are maintaining that kind of relation, the performance and fit and finish. The aesthetics are top-notch."

The cruiser market has been largely stagnant globally as adventure tourers, roadsters and modern-classics find more acceptance, going by recent trends. This has had an effect on the brand’s sales, which remain flat but Sharma iterates they aren’t falling either.

Indian Motorcycles: Flat growth amidst changing market trends

“I would say that the curve is flat, globally and in India, But yes we have other people in mid-size, Just like the Scout series, we have FTR, we have some more models which are more affordable and more geared towards challenges and what's new, which we have in our lineup," he said. “They're massive big machines, feature-packed, great to see. But honestly speaking, the road conditions and the places where you can actually take things are very limited, so I would say India is really flat. I mean, I'm not saying it's like we are degrowing, no, we are absolutely maintaining our market share, but as of now, it's not that like doing rapidly."

“Like if you see that global trend also in Europe and US and Australia and Japan, everywhere I believe people are more advanced about less than 1000 cc bikes. It's more practical. So, I think that trend is really rapidly changing and I think, Indian is also fairly present in that particular."

Indian Motorcycles: A middleweight bike in the works?

While Indian continues to hold on to its legacy spanning over 100 years, it has been dabbling into newer segments with models like the FTR. The Indian FTR 1200 turned out to be a game changer for the company addressing an evolving customer need. So is a sub 800 cc motorcycle on the cards, keeping up with market trends?

“The market is shifting very quickly. The buying behaviour specifically in Asia is very different from the US or Europe. So, I believe things are rapidly changing for all the OEMs, not only Indian or Harley Davidson," says Sharma. “Indian also is keeping a very close eye on what's happening in the competition, what's happening in different countries. What Japan is doing, what China is doing, what India is doing. So, I believe it will be too early to say that we are planning to launch a low-cc motorcycle, but you never know. That's always a possibility, but as of now, I would say the major business is from the US, which is essentially a heavyweight market."

"Honestly speaking FTR was specifically designed for Europe. Similarly, there are many things in the pipeline. I would say yes, there is a good possibility and the company is evaluating the situation very carefully. The regional preferences, and the overall business cases, that's always a possibility. It should not be a problem. I mean, if you take that, like 10 years back, who can say, Harley Davidson would come with a 440 cc bike? So, I think the strategies are changing year by year. We are evaluating and it's always a business case."

Indian Motorcycles: Expansion plans

Indian Motorcycles is banking on familiarity with innovation to bring in the new legion of customers. The brand recently debuted the 2025 Indian Scout range globally, the cruiser lineup is yet to be launched in India and is slated to arrive in 2025. The company is also expected to bring the updated Chieftain, Roadmaster, Springfield, and other premium cruisers. The brand's cruisers start from about ₹17 lakh, going up to nearly ₹50 lakh (ex-showroom). As of now, Indian has six dealerships in the country and has no plans to expand to newer markets.

“We want to stick to the tier-one cities and we want to grow those markets first with the new product and new pricing strategy. But for sure, we will have much more affordable products in the future. We will try to see it in tier two cities and we will see it in other places as well. So as of now, we are maintaining six dealerships across India and there may be a possibility we can figure out after say couple of years’ time, that we should be adding maybe two to three more, but not as of now."

Indian Motorcycles: More accessible bikes with revised import strategy

While high ticket price isn’t much of an issue for its clients, Indian could make its range more accessible thanks to a new plant coming up in Asia. The current model range is directly imported from the US as Completely Built Units (CBUs) but that could change with the new Asian facility which could make the importing process much simpler. Wouldn’t it be simpler to locally assemble the premium cruisers in India?

“It is a very kind of tricky question because nobody will say no to that because India is attracting so many investments, so many manufacturers and so many MNCs are setting up their factories and plants. I will not say no. Every time we evaluate the situation, we keep a very close eye on the Indian regulations and what's happening on the import/export side. So, I would not say no, but we keep on feeding the right information to the corporate [headquarters] and make a strategy accordingly.

But having said that, we came up with a huge factory in an Asian country. I would not disclose too many things on that, which will serve India also because, we have a FTS with Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia."

"There may be a possibility we should be taking the motorcycle from that factory, which can have a much better pricing, a much better supply chain situation versus coming from the US. So, that can be one of the kinds of good situation in the short run," he concludes.