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Bangalore , Nov. 11

TVS Motor Company said on Tuesday that it has been unable to meet the demand for its premium motorcycle, Fiero F2 and moped Scooty Pep because of undercapacity at its plant.

The TVS Vice-President for Marketing, Mr Harish Krishnamachar, told newspersons that it would take nearly three months for it to increase the capacity to meet the market demand for these two vehicles.

Mr Krishnamachar said it has been able to produce around 9,000 of these two vehicles a month, which is nearly 20 per cent less than the demand for them. "It will take us three more months to ramp up our capacity," he said. While the 150 cc FieroF2 is priced at around Rs 45,000, the 75 cc Scooty Pep is priced at around Rs 31,000.

Mr Krishnamachar said the company expects to meet the targeted sales of around 1.26 million during the current fiscal year. Since April 2003, it has been able to sell around 5.8 lakh vehicles. It plans to sell nearly 4 lakh scooterettes and mopeds during the year and over 8 lakh units of motorcycles.

He said the company does not have a sub-Rs 35,000 motorcycle and a scooter in its portfolio and may consider filling that gap.

Mr Krishnamachar said the 110 cc Victor is expected to sell over 4 lakh vehicles in 2003-04 compared with 3.79 lakh in the previous year. The company has so far sold 7.5 lakh Victors since its launch in September, 2001. It currently has a market share of between 12 per cent and 14 per cent among all the motorcycles in the market.

In October 2003, TVS Motor registered a growth of 4 per cent in the total two wheeler vehicles sold by recording sales of 1,04,308 units compared with 1,00,220 units sold last year during the same period. The company's growth in October 2003 was lower than the market due to the drop in sales of two stroke Max Motorcycles. This trend will continue till December 2003 by which time TVS Motor Company plans to launch two new four stroke motorcycle TVS Centra and an upgraded 125 CC TVS Victor.

The motorcycle sales in October 2003 stood at 61,777 units taking the total motorcycle sales in period April-October 2003 to 4,24,904 up by 3 per cent compared to 4,12,156 units recorded last year for the same period.

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