Not fun anymore? Honda's funky two-wheeler Navi sees a blip in sales

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India's fun two-wheeler Navi seems to be losing its market in the country. In recent times, the funky two-wheeler has seen a blip in sales. Though Honda itself did not put high hopes on Navi when it was introduced at the Auto Expo last year, the Navi beat all odds to touch the sales target set by the company within a year of its launch.

From March 2016 till October 2016, Honda sold over 50,000 units of Navi. However, the two-wheeler crossover could only add 10,000 units to its sales chart after October 2016 till March 2017. On a more worrying note, the monthly sales of Navi went below 300 by April 2017 as opposed to its average monthly sales of 7,000 in 2016.

A report of CarandBike said the sales of Navi dropped considerably in 2017 and in April it had sold just 284 units. Honda then sold 2,052 units of the Navi in January 2017 and 1,180 units in February 2017. Honda had initially expected to sell only 2,000 units of Navi per month and the two-wheeler crossover has been clocking well beyond the target, even prompting the company to ramp up its production at Tapukara plant in Rajasthan.

Navi is the first product to be conceived, designed, developed and validated in India by Honda's R&D. Its unconventional styling raised many eyebrows at the Auto Expo when it was introduced. It is neither a scooter nor a bike, but its success opened the door for a new kind of two-wheeler model in the country.

Offered in three variants — Street, Adventure and Off-road — Navi comes in five colour options — red, green, white, orange and black. Navi is powered by a 109cc four-stroke SI engine that also does duty in Activa. The mill churns out 7.83bhp of power at 7,000rpm and 8.96Nm of peak torque at 5,500Nm.

Source: CarandBike