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Bajaj Auto confident of maintaining 20% margin
Below is a verbatim transcript of Rajiv Bajaj's interview with CNBC-TV18's Udayan Mukherjee and Mitali Mukherjee.
Q: There is criticism that the sales numbers seem to reflect what is happening with the dealer level and there is stocking up. There is not much of retail appetite that is actually veined right now. How would you respond to that criticism?
A: It may be different for different companies. For Bajaj Auto our billing has lacked retail both in January, when we did 195 thousand motorcycles in the domestic market, and also, in February where we have done about 205 thousand. So, we have reduced some stock and it has been consistent on our part especially with motorcycles.
We have a new motorcycle to introduce in April and have been making space for that. The demand for three-wheelers is robust and we would like to make more. We are pleased that in a relatively short month, we could put out 40,000 three-wheelers, yet the demand is still ahead of that. Hence, in our case there is no increase in dealer stock either in January or February.
Q: How much do you think bike sales will then get upto on a monthly rate, if you are going at 2.86 this month?
A: We can reach to Rs 300 thousand mark in March, specifically this will be assisted by the festival of Gudi Padwa in early April. It is our biggest market day, we retail about bikes a month in Maharashtra. So, aided by that we hope to reach the Rs 300 thousand mark. April to June seems to be a good quarter because again aided by the season in the North and the associated festivities; we are hopeful that motorcycle sales will be upto Rs 325- Rs 340 thousand for that quarter.
Q: If you do hit Rs 3 lakhs next month, in terms of two-wheelers, what would be a rough break-up of that?
A: Almost 70% continue to be Pulsar and Discover. The Pulsar is powered by about Rs 80-85,000 a month; and Discover is about Rs 125,000 a month and the balance is equally split between Platina in this market and the Boxer in the overseas market. Hence, 70% is what we would like to call the bigger and sportier motorcycles that help us maintain the 20% EBITDA, even for this quarter as we have done through the year.
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Source: Bajaj Auto confident of maintaining 20% margin - CNBC-TV18 -
Can we skip through this month of March?? 
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