Riding high in the premium segment with the Success of Pulsar, Bajaj launched a premium 100cc motorcycle Discover 100 T in the Indian market recently. The bike comes with many first in segment features and will certainly give Hero MotoCorp serious competition which has been the market leader in this segment. Honda is also catching up quickly with the Dream Yuga followed by Suzuki which launched the Hayate in 2012 and roped in Bollywood Actor Salman Khan as a brand ambassador.
Bajaj Auto had exited the 100cc segment completely few years back, as the company felt many customers would graduate to 125cc segment which offered more features and mileage similar to 100cc bikes. But these came at the cost of a higher price.
In 2010 Bajaj re-entered the 100cc segment with the launch of the Discover 100, which became an instant success and the company sales grew exponentially.
With the new Discover 100 T Bajaj, plans to target the customers who want a mileage bike with features offered on the premium bikes. Bajaj has certainly created a new segment and the strategy seems right if the company wants to be a leader rather than a follower.
The company will closely study the market response for the new Discover 100T and have plans to launch more models on the same platform in the coming six months. We can expect more variants of the Discover 100T.
The question remains will Bajaj launch new products under the Discover brand name or will it keep the Platina brand alive or could we have lower cost bikes under the Boxer brand name tag?
Bajaj has always surprised the market, and this time too we could expect the same from the company.
