Not sure about up north, but from GOA and down south there are 5 Dios for every 1 Activa you can spot on the roads.
Every college going teen picks a Dio over the Activa.. well atleast the majority of them.

Yes you are quite right there ... Activa is very poplar in my area as well, most school going teenagers,women and aged people opt for Activa as it's easy to ride & has ample storage space for shopping !!

twas bound to happen. .hero won't be at top for long.gonna be between bajaj and honda no.1.yamaha will always remain niche product.high time they introduced a new upscale product.

One good thing about Activa is the paint colors, which are really nice compared to its competitors. Rest of the features, the competition is equally good.

Honda is just clearing the backlog of customers waiting for activa. Once this backlog is cleared, sales will come down. Honda wants to sell as much Activas as possible, before Suzuki increases production capacity of Access and Yamaha brings its scooter Ray.

Right now, even suzuki Access has a long waiting period, and suzuki plant is running in maximum capacity. They have to build new plant to increase production, but suzuki are very slow. Suzuki is concentrating more on car market (Maruti suzuki).

Activa 110cc and Dio 110cc are the only scooters with outdated old-technology front shock absorbers. Activa does not have telescopic front shockabsorbers.

Even Honda Aviator 110cc has telescopic front shock absorbers but is costly. Suzuki Access 125cc, TVS Wego 110cc, and Mahindra Rodeo 125cc all have telescopic front shock absorbers for better comfort on rough roads.

Only Wego has bigger 12-inch wheels for easier handling and stability on humps.

But we bakras will continue to buy Activa with old-type front shock absorber, why? because someone else told us to buy.

One sheep goes in one direction, the remaining sheep will follow.

Hope Yamaha Ray comes with 12-inch wheels, telescopic front shockabsorber, and front disc brake.

HMC soon to have down-slide.
So if HMSI has 220,487 units and BAL has 300,848 in the Motorcycle section, you can expect BAL to romp up the figures with the P200 and the New Discover. Honda MAY take over BAL as #2, but still has a long way to go. Don't expect BAL to just sit and watch.

Almost 70% of their sales are scooters, so I don't think Bajaj will be really worried even if Honda overtakes them with overall sales numbers. But Honda has lot of distance to cover to reach Hero Moto corp. I'm not sure what kind of impact Dream Yuga can make on Splendor/Passion. Surely, people will lap it up, but is it enough to overtake HMC, I got my doubts on that.

HMC: Until they phase out Splendor/Passion they will be no 1 in India

Bajaj: Very good marketing strategy and long line up to choose

Honda: Excellent line up for what the customers look for and Honda brand image. Bringing up products aiming the no 1 spot

TVS: Without Scooty and XL they will be fighting with Yamaha and Suzuki. Have to bring up good products.

Yamaha: Bad marketing and no Mass motorcycle/scooter makes Yamaha to sit in this place. Because of their poor marketing machines like YBX went unnoticed. The biggest constrain in Yamaha is the F.E but the reliability and handling Yamaha rocks no other manufacturer comes near ...

Suzuki: Access is the only machine which has brought them to the contention and moved to 5th spot. Availability of spares and increasing dealership will bring them more numbers ...

Interesting topic going on. My take on the manufacturers would be:

TVS - No new products and concentration on scooters more could transform them into a scooter-only company somewhat like Piaggio. The bikes are getting dated and we need a good design and refinement. The competition (Read: Honda, Bajaj, Yamaha) are having good variety and good lineup of products which TVS seem to lack.

HMSI - Long way to go. But more of scooter concentration than motorcycles. Need to improve the pathetic dealer-SVs they possess. Launch of china manufactured Yuga can turn fortunes for them in the rural areas although quality would be a concern on that one. Mileage of bikes need to be improved to some extent.

Bajaj - Again long way to go especially the next-Gen Bajaj products look quite interesting and a nice commuter can turn fortunes for them. The growth is always decent. Sales would be higher now but with many people waiting for Pulsar 200NS and next-Gen Discovers Bajaj should speed up to avoid a temporary lower sales figures. With the next-Gen Bajaj commuter bikes I expect them to eat up Hero in some years and fight with HMSI for the no.1 spot.

Hero - The growth has decreased from 11% last month to 2.4% this month. After the launch of Yuga and Bajaj next-Gen commuter bikes I speculate the growth would be negative for Hero. After 2014 I think Hero has to use their own technology (from AVL probably) and with Honda stickers gone negative growth seem to be inevitable. They need to upgrade their bikes (not stickers) since their models are dated now somewhat like TVS. The good thing about Hero is they have some variety.

Yamaha - It has a bad reputation for overpriced bikes, overpriced SVCs, Low FE which hurts its sales like anything. They have a good hold on the crucial 150cc segment but below that their products have always failed to excite consumers and have no resemblance to their bikes like Fz series and R15. They need to modify something on their bikes. But they have decent growth now. But Suzuki's growth is much faster and in a couple of months Yamaha will find itself on the 6th spot behind Suzuki.

Suzuki - GS-150R has good bike image although its too heavy at 150KG. Need to have more products and better designs. And of-course more dealers and parts availability. Nice growth after HMSI and ready to take the 5th spot from Yamaha.

Why there is Mahindra's name but no mention about RE. Of course we see good number of REs. I am yet to see a Stallio yet.

Where is yamaha 250-400cc bike. Even sites like icb make april fool of us by posting news of such bike.

By the way,Took test ride of their sz few days ago for a friend, the so called commuter. Even that bike had a mid range and bottom end rush like fz though not as strong. Wonder when will yamaha understand meaning of commuter in India. Then they don't give average and people don't buy it.

I found the yamaha sz to be the most dull boring dreary bike I ever rode even though i almost booked it as my first bike bought with my own money and I didn't consider the pulsars because of the horror stories people have told me about pulsar and turns out I was the idiot. I took a test ride of the pulsar 135 and bought it the same day. it has been the best investment for me yet. It is an amazing bike and can easily leave the yamaha fz16s and fazers behind any day in terms of speed/acceleration/handling/mileage/otr. The build quality after sales service everything is top notch in the bajaj pulsar. to everyone out there who considers the pulsars to be the worst bikes ever on all counts - you are very very wrong.