Hero / Harley-Davidson X440’s price is out, booting below the belt at a cunning 2.29 lakh (roughly $2800 USD). This bike is Harley-Davidson’s most affordable motorcycle, and she’s now published to a middleweight sector in which Royal Enfield has over 90% share (via BQPrime).
The plain-speak? Harley’s about to take a long pull of Royal’s loyal community of riders, many of whom want what Harley bikes are really, really good at – a premium motorcycle capable of long treks on the weekend (via India’s Harley Riding Community on MobilityOutlook).
Hero and Harley aren’t the only brands wanting a piece of the middling Bhārat markets, either; Hero’s triumph for the premium bike sector may be the Harley-Davidson X440, but Bajaj’s hero, Triumph, continues as the prime moniker through which to sell the new, very accessible Speed 400 and Scrambler 400 X duo to a similar end (via MobilityOutlook).
In short, the middleweight luxury bike segment in India appears saturated with all kinds of new bikes, and both Harley and Triumph are gunning to snatch a few sales for the coming season.
Where does all of this leave Royal Enfield?
We hear RE punted out stellar domestic sales for 2022 (via MotorcyclesData), celebrating “a hike of 24 percent [to 64,436 units] as against 52,135 units sold during the same period last year” (via the Hindustan Times).
These may pose marvelous figures for RE, though we expect domestic competition to put a small dint in sales for the 2023 financial year.
What do you think? Are Harley/Hero’s X440 going to make an impact in India’s middleweight markets?