British motorcycle company Triumph has comprehensively beaten American HarleyDavidson in India, since the time both hitched on to Indian automakers to revive their fortunes in the subcontinent, exactly two years ago.
In July 2023, Triumph partnered with Bajaj Auto and started selling the Speed 400 motorcycle in India—manufactured at Bajaj’s Chakan plant in Pune—followed by the Scrambler 400 X in October. In two years, Triumph has sold 68,673 units of both these bikes.
In July 2023, HarleyDavidson partnered with Hero MotoCorp and started selling the X 440 in India. Under this agreement, Hero also developed a bike on the platform, and called it the Mavrick 440 (launched in February 2024). Till now, HarleyDavidson has managed to sell just 26,629 units (less than half of what Triumph did), and Hero has sold merely 4,025 units of the Mavrick 440.
Automotive experts shared with FE key reasons why BajajTriumph has triumphed over HeroHarley.
“The X 440 was launched as a single model with three variants, priced from Rs 2.29 lakh to Rs 2.69 lakh. It catered to a singular set of buyers—those who wanted a premium Harley experience at a lower price and were mostly urban riders. Triumph, on the other hand, launched two bikes—the Speed 400 for a young professional, and the Scrambler 400 X for someone who loves to go touring,” an industry analyst told FE. “Bajaj was astute in pricing —it launched the Speed 400 for Rs 2.33 lakh, but said the first 10,000 customers would get it for just Rs 2.23 lakh. The youth found it a great deal, and dealerships swelled.”
By the time the Scrambler 400 X was launched for Rs 2.63 lakh in October, Triumph had garnered enough positive word of mouth. Unlike the topend X 440 (Rs 2.69 lakh), which was essentially the same bike as entrylevel X 440 (Rs 2.29 lakh) but with a different paint and decals, the Scrambler 400 X had a unique personality of an adventure tourer and didn’t look anything like the Speed 400— this gave it a new set of buyers, and today it contributes to almost a quarter of Triumph sales.
Hero MotoCorp, however, had an ace up its sleeve, and made a blazing entry with the Mavrick 440 in February 2024, priced just Rs 1.99 lakh.
“The price was awesome, but possibly the design wasn’t aspirational, and the Mavrick 440 couldn’t take off,” the industry analyst said, adding: “As against the X 440 that was selling 2,0003,000 per month, the Mavrick 440 sold just 568 units in its first month of sales (March 2024), followed by 1,049 in April, 791 in May, 459 in June, 269 in July, and dropped to a low of just 170 units in August.”
He added that in the first six months of this calendar year, Hero could sell only 243 units of the Mavrick 440, even though HarleyDavidson fared better with 3,386 units.
“Triumph’s monthly sales, however, are more than what HarleyDavidson has managed to sell in six months—it has sold 21,216 units this year till now, at a monthly average of 3,536 units,” he said.
In addition, Bajaj has also been exporting the Triumph twins to markets such as the US, the UK, Japan, Germany, and Australia, and recently launched the third Triumph model in India—the Speed T4 priced just Rs 2.17 lakh—which will only ensure that BajajTriumph keeps leading HeroHarley.
