Motosikal Dan Enjin Nasional (MODENAS), Malaysia's national motorcycle brand will enter the Malaysian street bike segment through collaboration with Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL) from India. The collaboration will be initiated in stages including distribution, and technology transfer through the development of a dedicated assembly hub in MODENAS’ plant in Gurun, Kedah. Eventually, MODENAS and BAL are also planning penetration into international markets, using the MODENAS brand in ASEAN and beyond.
A Bajaj Pulsar 200 - surprisingly nice looking, but still small capacity street/sports bike
With this statement I have to believe that Bajaj could be MODENAS' strategic partner in the long run. Of course, don't take my word for it. This is just a guess as MODENAS have a working collaboration with Kymco of Taiwan for their scooters (as well as being local distributors for the brand).
As for Bajaj, and the fact that they are working to develop the street bike segment ensures that MODENAS will have a better product line-up. With this MODENAS will have a foot into the popular street bike segment.
The 150cc to around 300cc segment is now proven to be popular with the Malaysia motorcycle buying crowd. MODENAS has been caught napping slightly and this move cannot come sooner in my opinion. The last 150cc Bike produced by MODENAS was the Jaguh. It was popular but somehow it was never replaced when production ended.
MEDIA RELEASE
MODENAS TO COLLABORATE WITH INDIA’S BAJAJ AUTO LTD
Malaysia’s bike maker enters street bike segment
Kuala Lumpur, 19 April 2017: Motosikal Dan Enjin Nasional (MODENAS), a
member of DRB-HICOM Berhad will enter the Malaysian street bike segment
through collaboration with Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL) from India.
Dato’ Sri Syed Faisal Albar, the Group Managing Director of DRB-HICOM believes
the move will strengthen the brand and help it capture a larger share of the
motorbike market.
“The cooperation is in line with our aspiration to strengthen the MODENAS brand as
a whole, by offering a wider range for motorcycle enthusiast. The local market was
very receptive to the MODENAS joint venture with Kymco in the scooter segment in
November last year, and now the company is ready to embark into a more
aggressive market, which is the street bike segment. With BAL as our partner, we
now have a new segment we can cater to,” Syed Faisal explained.
BAL is ranked as the fourth largest three- and two-wheeler manufacturer in the
world, and the Bajaj brand is well-known across several countries. In its home
market of India, Bajaj’s range of bikes has been well received, and it continues to cut
a bigger share of the market there.
“There is no doubt that BAL has the experience and technological know-how for this
segment. The Bajaj models we are looking to introduce into Malaysia in the coming
months have proven themselves globally, and we believe this will be replicated in
Malaysia too. Their motorcycles are market leaders in their respective segments
across 74 countries spanning Latin America, Middle East, South Asia, ASEAN and
Europe. BAL is known globally for a differentiated product line backed by an
innovative R&D team and rigorous product testing”, Syed Faisal explained.
The collaboration will be initiated in stages including distribution, and technology
transfer through the development of a dedicated assembly hub in MODENAS’ plant
in Gurun, Kedah. Eventually, MODENAS and BAL are also planning penetration into
international markets, using the MODENAS brand in ASEAN and beyond.
-end-
1 comment:
Nice
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