Chetak to return?

Read April Whitney's blog post "Bajaj longs for scooter success" dated December 25, 2007.
http://www.scootmagazine.com/blog.php


The Hindustan Times published the following article on December 25, 2007:

After ten years, Bajaj to ride scooters

Ten years after phasing out its iconic Bajaj Super and the Bajaj Cub, Bajaj Auto is now planning to revive its scooter business.

The world’s fourth largest maker of motorcycles and scooters, which built its fortune in the eighties and nineties selling lakhs of the geared scooters, is planning a series of steps, including setting up dedicated showrooms for scooter-buyers on the lines of its ‘Probiking’ showrooms.

Probiking is a series of branded, exclusive showrooms for Bajaj Motorcycles that offer an exclusive sales and service experience to prospective buyers. These would display and sell new models in the scooter segment, currently in the pipeline.

Bajaj Auto is keeping its cards close to its chest though. “We have nothing to share at this time,” Bajaj Auto managing director Rajiv Bajaj told Hindustan Times in reply to an email sent on Monday.

The company, which has since the late nineties shifted focus to the highly lucrative motorcycle business, has been found the going tough in the high volume 100 cc segment, where the Gurgaon-based Hero Honda has the upper hand. Unable to keep the volumes and profits from the 100 cc segment, where profit per bike can be as low as Rs 2,000, Bajaj launched the 125 cc XCD in an effort to woo the country's milkmen and contractors.

When it stopped making scooters, Bajaj had close to 80 per cent share of the scooters and scooterette business in the country. Most of this market has been taken over by Honda Motor and Scooters India (HMSI) with its range of geared and un-geared scooters.