"Fade" domestic motorbike market

With a market that is considered to have reached saturation point, blandness is perhaps understandable...

The purchasing power of the Yamaha Nozza scooter model is not really commensurate with the noise in the media and social networks.

The market size is still among the top in the world with around 3 million units sold each year. However, the Vietnamese motorbike market is showing signs of fading.

Out of ideas

According to statistics from the Vietnam Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (VAMM), the total sales volume in the entire market in fiscal year 2014 of the five major motorcycle manufacturers including Honda, Yamaha, Piaggio, SYM and Suzuki reached 2.71 million units.

Of which, Honda cars alone sold more than 1.9 million units.

It must be admitted that among these 5 "giants", Honda is still the most notable name, still the dominant brand, leading the market with up to 70% market share. In addition to the most powerful product force, in most segments, Honda is also currently maintaining its leading position in sales volume.

The market is large, but it seems that in the past few years, each car company itself is showing signs of running out of product ideas.

At the 2014 fiscal year-end ceremony, Honda Vietnam General Director, Mr. Minoru Kato, said that about 10 new car models will be launched in the market in the 2015 fiscal year, from April 2015 to the end of March 2016. However, these are all upgraded versions, not new cars or completely new generations.

Or the second largest car company in the market is Yamaha. Although the product portfolio of this brand in Vietnam is still quite thin, many segments are still open, but the number of new cars launched in the market in the past 3 years is really insignificant.

As famous as the Nozza and Nozza Grande scooter models are, they are only mostly noisy in the media and social networks due to the company's marketing strategy, but the actual purchasing power in the market has not shown a commensurate attraction.

Recently, this Japanese car company has launched the Exciter 150 Camo manual transmission version. In fact, this version is not new, it is just a "painting" of the exterior in military style. Anyway, Exciter is still Yamaha's most popular model in the Vietnamese market, still the most solid "hold" when targeting young customers.

Meanwhile, the Jupiter, which once dominated the market, has gradually fallen into oblivion; Sirius, Nouvo and Luvias are no longer attractive and are increasingly disappearing from the market; even the Cuxi model, which was once introduced to create a new trend among young people, has also "died young".

Looking forward to new segment?

However, Honda and Yamaha are still the two most notable brands, dominating many segments of the market. This is also partly due to the implicit division of customer positioning. If Honda is neutral, simple and practical, suitable for many different customer groups, Yamaha targets young people who love the sporty style of each model.

Also because of different positioning, another notable car brand, Piaggio, although not achieving large sales volume, also has its own "space". Piaggio's success comes largely from brand value and fashion style, not much depending on usage value.

With a popular motorbike market that is considered to have reached saturation point, the blandness is perhaps understandable. Up to this point, most of the current models are in their “mid-spring” age, not yet ready to be replaced by a completely new generation. Meanwhile, the product portfolio is also too cramped and purchasing power cannot increase, at least enough to create demand for car manufacturers to invest in adding completely new products to the portfolio.

Therefore, the fact that car manufacturers are only struggling with adding a few more strokes of paint like Yamaha or changing a few decals and paint materials like Honda seems to be a last resort.

That doesn’t mean there’s no room in the motorcycle market for manufacturers to make a splash. Those are products aimed at narrower, more distinct, and more individualistic customer groups. For example, sporty manual transmission motorcycles, large displacement motorcycles, etc.

These product segments are becoming more and more exciting with the presence of a series of new brands such as Ducati, Harley Davidson, Benelli, Kawasaki, KTM...

However, it is easy to see that this area that is starting to become noisy is overwhelmingly made up of completely imported vehicles, not a game of domestic manufacturers. And so, the richness or blandness does not depend on the domestic motorcycle industry itself, but only a small playground of imported vehicles.

According to VnEconomy