At Rs 4 lakh, Harley Davidson's Street 750 is chasing more riders

Harley-Davidson India, the iconic super bike maker which commenced operations in August 2009, is betting big on the country. Of the 3,000 interviews it did to get inputs for its newly launched Street 750, as many as 500 were conducted in India, says managing director Anoop Prakash. The company has 13 models in India, including the Street 750. It has 13 dealerships across India, in New Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Indore, Pune, Goa and Jaipur. Below is an interview with Prakash and Marc McAllister, vice president & MD Asia pacific of Harley Davidson.

What’s with this aggressive pricing of Rs 4 lakh?

Anoop: Firstly, the Street platform is a big launch for Harley Davidson globally. It is the first new platform in 14 years in the company with an all-new powertrain, all-new chassis. And it was developed with customer inputs, about 3, 000 interviews in 10 countries and 500 of those interviews were in India. That is in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. They wanted something that could beat the challenges of everyday riding - higher ground clearance, good suspension, attitude that’s why we have the dark custom styling, blacked out exhausts and forward leaning; so a combination, which is a true Harley Davidson.

And one of the things they talked about was accessibility. They said that they want something that they can buy today, not something that we have to save up for in the future. So the Street 750 was developed with all those things in mind. So the other thing is that we built the Street 750 both in the US and India, which allows us to price it at an almost similar cost. It is about $7,500. So that’s the benefit of building something at two places.

Did it involve doing something that Harley hasn’t done before in terms of component sourcing and strategy?

[caption id=“attachment_75165” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Harley-Davidson India, the iconic super bike maker which commenced operations in August 2009, is betting big on the country, says Anoop Prakash.[/caption]

Anoop: It is just not about the price. One of the elements of accessibility is making the vehicle easy to ride and I think we addressed that by agility and making the vehicle more responsive. And then it is making the product at the right place so that you can get it to a customer when they want it. That’s part of the manufacturing strategy of building it in different places around the world. The last bit is making it more affordable and that benefit is to get to by sourcing strategy.

And now when you localise some of that, you get a better price. So if you do some of that in India, you can price it as competitively as we have done. And you know from our CKD experience, we have passed on all of those cost savings to our customers. So we went from Rs 6.95 lakh starting to 5.5 lakh and now 4 lakh.

How have the volumes been for Harley Davidson in India?

Anoop: What we have disclosed is volume till date and so since July 2010 and till now, we have about 4, 000 vehicles on the road. So we have grown at a steady double digit growth rate. And even in this automotive slump we expect that to continue. I think one of the reasons is that people find it very difficult to cut back on their passions.

How are your expectations on growth in this market?

[caption id=“attachment_75167” align=“alignright” width=“380”] Marc McAllister and Anoop Prakash. Image by Amit Verma / Forbes India[/caption]

Anoop: I can see a similar kind of growth that we have seen in the premium car market. When they started there were just one or two and now the market has exploded. I think that’s the kind of trend we are seeing in premium motorcycling also. So new entrants are coming in and existing players are moving upstream. So we are going to see many more choices for the customers.

Marc, how’s the premium motorcycle segment doing in Asia-Pacific?

Marc: Asia-Pac can be broken into mature and emerging markets. There is this dichotomy but what we are seeing is a clear growth across the emerging markets. So you can see the response we have had in India, we have had good growth in China and South East Asia; we are finding passion in people for our brands all over the region.

Anoop, is Harley’s business profitable right now?

Anoop: Yes. I mean we wouldn’t keep investing without that. We are heading absolutely in the right direction on all fronts.