No concrete signs of sales pick-up yet, says Bajaj Auto MD

Moneycontrol Bureau

Two-wheeler sales remain sluggish and there are no concrete signs of a pick-up yet, Rajiv Bajaj, MD, Bajaj Auto said on Monday.

The India's second largest two-wheeler maker reported a 3 percent year-on-year rise in January sales at 3.48 lakh units. Motorcycle sales were up just 2 percent at 3.01 lakh units, while commercial vehicle sales rose 7 percent to 46,263 units. Exports were up 10 percent at 1.28 lakh units. The company said sales were higest ever for Jan.

Bajaj told CNBC-TV18 that there was some festive season spike in sales in Oct-Nov, but since mid Dec, the market has been flat and although there has been some growth over Dec-Jan, there is nothing to celebrate yet.

However, he is confident of the company achieving its target of 4.3 million (43 lakh) unit sales in the current financial year (FY2013).

Bajaj had said last month, that the company would miss its 5 million (50 lakh) sales target for the current fiscal, and would only likely sell around 43 lakh units.

The company is banking on new launches like the Discover 100T it launched recently to drive sales growth and help boost market share, which has flattened out at around 25 percent.   

Bajaj said that around 15,000 Discover 100Ts have so far been sold to distributors and the company is satisfied with the response the bike has got so far.

Bajaj Auto shares were up 1.2 percent at Rs 2,081 on NSE in morning trade.