xl_rage

I am pretty much unsure what is in the minds of Yamaha motor India. I felt happy when they started looking the Indian two wheeler market seriously. I mean long gone were the days of the old Fazer-which actually was sure to phase out the day it was launched. I mean who would like the head of their beloved motorbike like a head of a Buzzing bee ? I had a great laugh then.

Cut to last year, they came out with R15. I'm like 'Wow', can Indian roads handle that ? and will that handle the Indian Roads ? but soon all the speculations and guesses rested in peace. The 1+ Lakh fuel sucker proved to be worthy. It overpowered the Pulsars dominance till that day. Still it was only possible for a serious bike fanatic and for the people who weigh the money rather than counting it, to buy this customised supermodel. Then came FZ. That went on to become the Bike of the year. and soon landed in my garage. Till that time it was okay.

The success of FZ was a reliving and reviving experince for Yamaha. It reminded them of the days of the RX series. Everything was going great -and just as all good things in life -they tripped over. I agree that you have to hit the hammer when the metal is hot, but repeated hitting spoils the shape guys. Thats what I fear is in the near future. No modificaitons done, unexpectedly they launched FZ-S, just to throw the original FZ which brought them back their status in the shadows. All that was changed were colours. and added a great viser. big deal. should I pay 2k extra for a carbon viser ? Naaaah...

Anyway, now they have gone even further. Launched a brand new Yamaha Fazer. The new model IS FZ with new collors. It appears to be a hybrid model of R15 and FZ. Just as people wear different hats on same costume, this has the same body except the half fairing they provided. Even the console backlight is as same as FZ.

If i am not wrong, HH and Honda have already driven this path. The same passion coming again and again, with new body art, and the same unicorn without any upgrades; revisiting. I dont think Indian markets will buy that anymore. In fact there was a talk in forums and communities when Honda and HH played this dirty paint job games. I seriously was not hoping this from Yamaha.

On the other side, a respectable and enviable TVS, launched a varient of their sole sellable Apache. The apache in a way has a better graph, The first one failed, had lots of issues. TVS done a remarkable job, introduced what style and power is to the markets by RTR. Then they too played a dirty game I believe just to keep the ball rolling for a while with RTR refresh(just the front half fairing additions), then came RTR FI, and now RTR 180. I have heard the talks about RTR 180 FI as wel. lets see they turn to news or rumours. Way to go TVS.

so bikerz ! any comments on this ?

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ken cool

Discussion Approved

That is a well written piece of article. The title does not match the content. However I approved it since it is a good read!

Edit: Welcome to xBhp. One helluva first post!

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chauhan_saurabh

Well writ man ..

I am in total agreement with each and every word you wrote. Yamaha, is just trying their luck with a strategy which has, so called, made HH world's largest 2 wheeler maker but they forgot to price them appropriately as lately even Premium king HH has been pricing their bikes competitively and at many instances cheaper than Bajaj and TVS in the same category.

ravi@17bhp

Very well put article. I guess these thoughts have been going on most section of our bikers. Though it is premature to say Yamaha is following the HH and Honda way, we have to wait until after they launch a bike in premium segment. I sincerely hope they will do that. If not, Yamaha, just another Indian Player.

But, as long as the models appeal good and make good market for Yamaha, this is what after all they want, and great profits, which enable them to look into premium segments in future. Let them give some time.

BANDHAV

Seems like desperation has take better of them, they did sell bucket loads of their new products in the intial few months of product launch but expecting the same kind of number is fool hardiness. They could have done something like FZ S as mid life makeover with some more minor changes but doing it back to back after the launch of fz is nothing but desperation. The luck can change overnight but market share cant.

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skyknight19

a good read an i do agree with some of the points you have put over there. but what i feel is that in the absense of any highly successful 100-125cc bike the fz is yamaha's cash cow, and inspite of its huge success yam can only manage to sell 16-17k of the bikes a month which is not going to help them in investing into other models in a longer run. so in order to get some more from their cash cow they chose the easier way to add a fairing and not a bigger engine so the entire series resembles their line-up in other countries which might have been their initial plan. nothing wrong in that but charging a premium over other bikes is what might have hit yamaha the most and they don't have any reason to reduce the prices now and that fairing does not look cheap either. moreover adding a bigger block (200cc or above) to the fz will hit its very own r15 to some extent if priced low and if priced high then might not sell that much.

the dual horn, the headlight assembly, etc, is a welcome change but the entire tourer thing is just a marketing gimmic. and some of people will surely go for this one so yamaha will benefit to some extent. instead of running promotional offers yamaha should simply cut the prices of the fz series by 3-4k and that might help them.

yam and tvs are doing similar things in different directions yam in looks dept for fz and tvs in performance segment for the rtr, its just that tvs has a competitive price because of other successful models.

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chauhan_saurabh

Because newly added valuable customer base they can't afford to reduce the price, they chose for discount path.
They would not like to make angry all new loyal customers all of a sudden.

But yeah, if they reduce price by 3-5k and make them competitive, I am sure they will sell like anything. All the non-performance(die hard power fans) executive segment guys will just leave other 150cc for this one and yes, they should work a bit on the mileage too , after all commuter class is still a big chunk of 150 segment.

KwokFist

Welcome to xbhp! That was a good read indeed. Agree with some of your points.

Yamaha needs sales and is selling its products at quite a premium but they are good nonetheless. They rolled out a tourer specific bike in the disguise of a modified FZ, while its a marketing gimmic and nothing more its still a good strategy. They are increasing their product offering keeping in terms with market expectations and so far they seem to be doing well. Better than they have been doing from over a year ago.

Whatever their strategy is, it seems to be working for them. And as far as customer expectations are concerned, atleast with respect to their products, they have left us grinning and for once seem to have hit the spot in some ways. There are many things left still desired and expectations prevail but given that FZ is their best selling product they would obviously want to increase sales and provide customers with some variety.

Pricing is not justified and neither is the tech that comes with it. The bikes are beautiful and for change everyone is okay with that.

But, all that apart their move seems isolated around FZ and they are trying to cash on its success while they can and seems like yamaha is desperate to boost its sales further. What remains to be seen is how well the Fazer will be accepted into the market at its price.

There goes my thoughts over the matter.

P.S. R15 is NOT a fuel sucker. It's quite a fuel efficient bike, contrary to what you seem to assume.

archibaby

Well .. it's simple .. ppl were bowled over by the FZ and only for the looks and styling. No other bike in India matches it on sheer poser value and that counts for 99.99pc of the populace. So this shocked yamaha who thought they are out of the mass market, so let's carve out a niche performance market. Now they are mass market again, so when the market is all about styling, all they need to do is phase out the FZ16 by introducing the FZS and throw in a tourer edition for good measure. Now we should understand that all said and done, the mechanicals do compliment the vehicle and fit and finish is top notch. So it is a win win for the customer too.

I think the R15 will follow a 2-3 year upgrade cycle with intermediate years seeing styling changes. (Upcoming colours)

.:. Archi

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Wheel_Spin

You are also forgetting the fact that though Honda and Unicorn have been on that path, it seems to have worked for them(biggest market share) so why would it not work for yamaha ? Besides the bike designs are unlike anything we have seen in India for a long time.

As for the Fazer TS i think it's an honest attempt at trying to fix the windblast problem which a tourer would face while riding at high speeds. The FZ-S though imo was entirely unnecessary.

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