- Hero MotoCorp plans to leverage Dakar Rally and motorsports to boost premium motorcycle growth
- Bajaj Auto leads India's adventure segment with KTM and Triumph brands and events
- TVS Motor revives Norton for adventure and sport-touring, launching models in multiple countries
Hero MotoCorp is betting on its motorsports pedigree, including its Dakar Rally programme, to power a new push into premium motorcycling, as India's top two-wheeler makers converge on a common strategy: using racing credibility and adventure branding to build out their premium franchises.
Anuj Dua, newly appointed as Hero's Chief Business Officer for the Premium segment, told analysts on the company's first-quarter FY27 earnings call that Hero's motorsports investment was already "paying us huge dividends across the globe, specifically in India and Latin America," describing the company's "Dakar and motorsports efforts" as "clear winner in that mind space."
Dua called adventure "the fastest growing segment across the world" and named community engagement, merchandise and an expanded partnership with Harley-Davidson among his early priorities for the unit, alongside a slate of new premium models expected over the next 12 months.
Indian bike makers are set to chase the adventure boom for their next leg of growth.
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Hero is not alone in this approach. Bajaj Auto is running a comparable playbook through its KTM and Triumph brands. Joint managing director Rakesh Sharma said the two brands "now lead the adventure category in India," citing KTM's Adventure range delivering "another record quarter" and pointing to events such as the KTM Moto Carnival, Duke's Track Experience and the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride as drivers of customer engagement. Sharma listed accelerated growth in the "super premium sports segment" through "investment in niche segment development like adventure and sport" as one of Bajaj's seven strategic priorities for the rest of FY27.
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TVS Motor is pursuing the same territory through a different route: Norton Motorcycles, which it fully owns. CEO K.N. Radhakrishnan said the Atlas and Atlas GT models "return the storied mark to adventure and sport-touring segments," calling those categories a "substantial part of the growing share of global motorcycle sales." Production of the Atlas has begun at TVS's Hosur plant, with launches planned across the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and India this year, followed by the US. TVS has invested roughly Rs 2,500 crore in Norton over the past four to five years.
Royal Enfield, the incumbent leader in India's middleweight segment, is leaning on racing and ride culture rather than rally motorsport. The company expanded its Continental GT Cup to eight Indian cities and introduced the GT-R750 for professional racers during the quarter, alongside flagging off its biggest-ever Himalayan Odyssey, which drew riders from eight countries as part of its 125th-anniversary celebrations. CEO B. Govindarajan said the company would ramp up "experiential rights and experiential marketing" around the Himalayan brand in the coming quarters.
None of the four companies referenced each other by name on their earnings calls. But taken together, their strategies point to a shared industry response: as growth in entry-level motorcycles cools, India's leading two-wheeler makers are turning to motorsport, racing heritage and adventure branding to capture a customer base with rising aspirations and deeper pockets.
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