The Indian two-wheeler exporters, like Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, and TVS Motor Company, which have assembly plants in Bangladesh, are hoping for business to return to normalcy with the interim government in place.

Japanese subsidiaries like Honda and Yamaha also export two-wheelers to Bangladesh from India, and though this business is very small, these companies account for around 50 per cent of the Bangladesh two-wheeler market.

Most of these companies have just around 1 per cent of their overall revenues coming from Bangladesh, but the market has the potential to grow, industry sources told businessline.

TVS Motor Company also said that Bangladesh is a small market and that it has recently made some modifications in its operations there.

“Bangladesh is a very small market as far as we are concerned because we were making some modifications and restructuring. The numbers are very very small... we are seeing some challenges in Bangladesh, but we are hopeful that things will settle down soon,” K N Radhakrishnan, Director and Chief Executive Officer, TVS Motor, said.

Speaking at a recent earnings call with analysts after the first quarter results, he said the company would start exports to Bangladesh ‘in a couple of months’, as it recently started in Sri Lanka with some exports after a gap of two years.

Talking about the entire ASEAN market, Radhakrishnan said that in the long term, business opportunities in these markets would flourish in the future.

“So, Bangladesh may take a little time. But I am very confident that these are very strong markets for TVS... You have to stay, and if you stay in the market and keep giving products to the customers, I am very confident that at some point of time, you will start succeeding in ASEAN,” he added.

Similarly, the country’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer, Hero MotoCorp, indicated that the Bangladesh market, though not big, is still important for Indian manufacturers.

“Bangladesh is a small market for two-wheelers with a total annual size of around four lakh units, which had shrunk to around 2.50 lakh units because of the recent crisis. Hero has exported around 60,000 units this year,” a source told businessline.

According to industry sources, Bajaj Auto has the highest market share in Bangladesh with around 23 per cent, followed by Hero MotoCorp at around 17 per cent, TVS Motor Company and Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India with around 15 per cent, and Yamaha Motor India with around 13 per cent.

Industry veterans also said that the situation in Bangladesh will not be similar to what happened in Sri Lanka in 2022, during the island’s worst economic crisis, when Indian two-wheeler manufacturers had to halt their exports and have only recently resumed them.

According to the recent monthly report by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Indian two-wheeler companies exported a total of 3,24,908 units in July, marking a year-on-year (y-o-y) growth of around 8 per cent compared to 3,01,516 units in the same month last year. Between April and July, total exports grew by 14.2 per cent y-o-y to 12,48,056 units, up from 10,92,832 units in the corresponding period last year.

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