VietNamNet Bridge – Yamaha, Suzuki, SYM and Piaggio are always the first manufacturers that introduce new motorbike models, but Honda’s products have been dominating the market.

Vietnam is the fourth biggest popular motorbike market in the world, after China, India and Indonesia. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Vietnamese market would get saturated by 2020, when three Vietnamese have one motorbike. This means that the Vietnamese motorbike industry still has nearly 10 years ahead to develop.

The Vietnamese motorbike market, which has been controlled by foreign invested enterprises’ products, can be divided into two parts – Honda’s and non-Honda’s.

Honda is believed to hold 65 percent of the market share, followed by Yamaha with 25 percent, while the remaining 10 percent belong to Suzuki, SYM and Piaggio.

Regarding the coverage, Honda now has 640 authorized dealers HEAD across the country, while Yamaha 540, SYM 310, Suzuki 120 and Piaggio 90.

Analysts said Honda is not the best manufacturer in research and development (R&D) which understands clients well and offer the new products they need.

It was Yamaha, not Honda, which raised the “scooter wave” in Vietnam when launching Nouvo model. It was Suzuki, who ignited the tendency of driving naked bikes with strong character models like RGV, FX. However, Honda is very good at developing and perfecting the products.

The market once witnessed the scooter battle between the two big guys Yamaha and Honda. For five years long since 2002, Nouvo sold like hot cakes, thus helping make Yamaha’s market share soar. With Nouvo, customers got familiar with the concept “automatic.”

However, the golden age of Nouvo finished in 2007, when Honda launched the Air Blade into the market. The Air Blade has been described as the “great success” of Honda when its prices were always sky high for four consecutive years. The price of the model has only cooled in the economic recession and because of the problems in the design of the 2011 version products.

Suzuki and SYM once tried to gather their strength to compete with Honda and Yamaha on the scooter market, the most profitable market with the growing tendency among the youth of using scooters. However, they nearly could not make any breakthrough in the market.

However, it seems that non-Honda manufacturers have regained their strength since the beginning of 2013, when Honda has been busy with its plan to expand production by setting up the third factory in Vietnam, and increase the sales.

The other manufacturers understand that a direct confrontation with the giants would bring failure, and that it would be better for them to conquer the niche markets, or the markets which Honda has not reached to.

Analysts have noted that Yamaha, Suzuki and SYM all are targeting the sports naked-bike and the motorbikes with the cylinder capacity of less than 50 cubic meters.

Suzuki, in an unceasing effort to regain its strength, has launched the products targeting the youth. While continuing making scooters, the manufacturer has marketed naked bike models, EN 150, then Axelo, while planning to introduce Raider 150 by the end of the year.

SYM, after the success with Atlia model, has been focusing on making 50 cc motorbikes. Small cylinder capacity products are believed to be favored by general school students and housewives, because they don’t need to obtain driving licenses to use the motorbikes.

VNE