South Africa is a beautiful place with a good population composed of mixed races and mixed financial status. The financial status of certain groups is different is also varies in general with some part of the population using cars as their major means of transportation or taxi cabs while the others who are not financially privileged look for a more affordable means of transportation with lower running cost and ownership cost. In terms of offering affordable means of transport, South Africa is a suitable market for low cost and highly fuel efficient two wheelers.
Bajaj, one of the top two-wheeler manufacturer in India is vey keen on entering the South African market and wishes to flood the townships with with affordable bikes. As of now, launching a range of cheap bikes in South African market can be considered as a challenge as there is no local culture of two-wheelers.
image – 2012 Bajaj Discover 125 ST Launch In India
Karan Patni, Marketing Manager, Bajaj Southern Africa, said, “
South Africa is a very particular market. The black South Africans who live in townships, they don’t have their own means of transport. They have to walk to a taxi rank, take a taxi and probably take another one. They spend a lot of money, and waste a lot of time”,
Currently there are 350,000 registered bikes in Africa of which most are ridden by rich or passionate bikers or used on weekends. A very small part of the population owns motorcycles and they consider it as a luxury and not a means of transport. Another very surprising fact is that in Africa, owning a car is prestigious so it is quite difficult to penetrate into a market where bikes are not used on a regular basis. People owning bikes and motorcycles are generally seen as poor in Africa which means there will be huge possibility of rejection.
We are sure if Bajaj advertises and markets its motorcycles in the correct way, most likely the company will record humongous sales. The population in South Africa is big enough and there is a great potential to accept motorcycles so all we hope is that Bajaj does well. Lets wait and watch how the events progress and how well these low cost bikes are received in South Africa.
Source – ET
