TWO-WHEELER INDUSTRY: GROWTH DRIVERS INTACT
Contacts
Anjan Ghosh aghosh@icraindia.com (+91-22-30470006) Subrata Ray subrata@icraindia.com (+91-22-30470027) Jitin Makkar jitinm@icraindia.com (+91-124-4545368)
Overview
The Indian two-wheeler (2W) industry has shown a strong volume growth over the last two-years, having grown by 25% in 2009-10 and 27% in 2010-111 to reach 13.3 million units. This strong double-digit growth has been driven by multiple factors. One reason, of course, is statistical as this period of high double-digit growth has showed up after a rather sedate previous two years, when the 2W industry volumes had shrunk by 5% in 2007-08 and had grown by a mere 5% in 2008-09. In addition to the contribution of pent-up demand, the 2W industry growth over the last two years has been supported strongly by various underlying factors including India’s rising per capita GDP, increasing rural demand, growing urbanization, swelling replacement demand, increasing proportion of cash sales and the less measurable metric of improved consumer sentiment. Going forward, ICRA expects the 2W industry to report a volume CAGR of 10-12% over the next five years to reach a size of ~21-23 million units by 2015-16 as it views the fundamental growth drivers comprising of expected steady GDP growth, moderate 2W penetration levels, favourable demographic profile, under developed public transport system and utility quotient of a 2W - to be intact. Additionally, the entry of new players in the industry, multitude of new model/ variant launches, growing distribution reach, cheaper ownership costs on a relative basis are expected to be some of the other prime movers for industry growth over the medium term. In ICRA’s view, while the trend in rising commodity prices, hardening interest rates and increasing fuel costs may lead to some moderation in industry growth over the short term, the growth over the medium to long term is expected to remain in double