Bajaj Auto has seen a strong rebound in exports in quarter 3 of FY26 with 200,000 export sales per month since October and the numbers cross the 600,000 mark after 15 quarters. The company expects this export momentum to continue. In fact, the Bajaj Auto leadership has said that the company is on the path to deliver its highest ever topline performance in dollar terms this financial year. Continued leadership in the three-wheeler segments is also supporting the growth of the company. Bajaj Auto emerged as the number one player in the electric auto segment in quarter 3. In electric two wheelers, TVS and Bajaj Auto have consolidated their position as the top two players followed by Ather Energy, Hero MotoCorp and Ola in the fifth place. Bajaj Auto has said that for electric two wheelers, the company has emerged out of supply chain disruptions and is working on a rapid scale up of sales and production. While Bajaj Auto's two-wheeler sales in the domestic market were up 25% at 2 lakh 14,000 units in January this year, overall between April to January, the domestic two-wheeler sales for the company were down by about 2%. To drive domestic growth, Bajaj Auto has taken seven initiatives in the form of upgrades recently and eight more interventions or products are expected to come out in the next four months. Increasing growth in the 125cc plus segment and the 150cc plus segment will be a priority for the company. Joining us now to talk about all of this is Bajaj Auto's Rajiv Bajaj, the managing director of the company. Mr. Bajaj, thank you very much. The export performance has stood out in the last quarter. How do you see the export momentum continuing?
Hi Parik. Yes, exports has been our most standout vertical over the last quarter as you mentioned. After a long time we crossed an average of 200,000 vehicles per month. In the last quarter we are set to repeat that in this quarter and hopefully do even better in the next year. Let me just share some data points with you starting with our oldest markets. Sri Lanka, for example, from complete collapse say two years ago is back to over 10,000 a month. Nepal, also very troubled in recent times, now over 5,000 a month. Our biggest market Nigeria, that used to average at its best 60,000 a month, had gone to zero and now back to 30,000 a month consistently and I believe looking at 35 to 40,000 a month in the near future. Doing very well in Kenya, Uganda, DRC. But the star really is LATAM, as Rakesh has been telling you, not just the older markets like Colombia and Central America but the relatively newer ones, Mexico, Brazil, where we are up to now over 3,000 a month and I believe in the top five in the market in terms of number of players. Parik, I never thought a day would come when I would be saying to you that in just one month of January, we recorded a sale in LATAM alone of over 50,000 motorcycles, most of which are Pulsar and Dominar, and over 5,000 three-wheelers. I never thought this would happen but it has.
All right. So that's a strong performance in Latin America as you pointed out. 50,000 two wheelers in January, 5,000 three-wheelers. So if the export numbers crossed 600,000 in quarter 3, would you expect similar numbers or could you give us a growth projection for this quarter for quarter 4 and going forward?
Should be very similar also because the month of March, as you know, in terms of accounting term for us ends by 20th of March in terms of exports, making sure that all the bill of lading etc. is available to close the books. So this month, despite a shorter month in that sense, this quarter we will still finish at 600,000 having done 215,000 in January. We are set to repeat that number this month and then the balance will come in March. But from first quarter of next year we should certainly be doing better. I'm hopeful that with the spillover from March into April we should be edging towards 250,000 in April.
Also to ask you about the recent trade deals. How are you encouraged by the FTA conclusion with the European Union? It's going to come into effect next year and we will be getting zero duty access for our two wheelers. How does this help you and how does it open up new markets?
Well, I'm very positive, Parikshit, obviously because fundamentally, let me tell you this from our recent experience with so many European suppliers that are supplying to KTM that I've been speaking with. It's very clear they say to us that in the pursuit of China plus one, they evaluated India, they evaluated Thailand, and they evaluated Vietnam. These are the three sources that most people are looking at, and almost without exception everyone says that so long as there is scale, you cannot beat India. India is more competitive than all these alternatives, including at least in our industry what I have heard from them even China on both quality and cost. So ours is a business where we have tremendous scale, unlike for example the car industry in India. So this deal is going to be great for the two wheeler industry.
All right, and what about the United States? We're seeing a lot of uncertainty with the trade deal there. Yes, it has been agreed upon at 18%, then of course the Supreme Court struck down the IPA tariffs, then Donald Trump increased tariffs to 10% and now to 15%. How do you see the uncertainty there? How does the company and your export push get impacted?
That story is we've done very well. Prediction, you know as someone said, you can't control the wind but you can adjust your sails. It's a real testament, as I told you the last time we spoke as well, to Indian engineering and Indian engineers that when the 50% tariff was imposed, Bajaj Auto absorbed most of that for the export of both KTM and Triumph out of India to the US, a volume for us about 15,000 per year. And let me tell you, despite absorbing most of that 50% increase, our EBITDA on those products was over 20% over our corporate average. That just tells you how competitive India is. Now of course we are shipping not at 50% tariff but at 15% tariff. We've just changed FOB in that context. So obviously the volume has been protected and the EBITDA is going to be very, very strong. So again, US is looking great for us.
Right now, just to ask you about certain measures that the Indian government is taking to support exports, but at the same time the ROTEP scheme, the government there has slashed duty benefits by 50%. Now exporter bodies have expressed concern. They've urged the government to rethink. How does this impact the two-wheeler segment especially?
Well, it can only have a negative impact. I've always said that more than anything, the government in this regard has to ensure greater and greater ease of doing business. In terms of what I like to call the five L's: labor, legislation, land, logistics, and electricity. And it's true again if I compare with markets like Thailand and Vietnam and some others that we have some experience of, it is still harder to do business in India than it is to do out of those places. And ROTEP, as everyone knows, is not a subsidy or an incentive. It is basically trying to negate exporting your inefficiencies or the inefficiencies of the ecosystem in which you have to perform. So frankly, for an exporter like Bajaj whose export EBITDA is way above its corporate EBITDA of 20%, and the way the rupee is depreciating, it is not the most significant thing. But for a lot of the other people who are especially in a B2B kind of business who do not have price elasticity, I can imagine that this is not a trivial issue. And I just don't understand, it could not have been more ill-timed.
All right. Just to ask you about EV sales. The company has been looking to tackle supply chain issues. EV sales as per Vahan numbers for January were in the range of 26,000 units. Bajaj Auto was in second place after TVS Motor Company and somehow both companies have consolidated their position over the last one year. How do you look to drive sales going forward and how do you expect the sales and production to increase?
Well, let me tell you, as much as we remain India's number one automotive exporter by volume, we are actually, we have been for some time, India's number one EV company. This year our PLI claim in that regard will be of the highest slab, and I think will be to the tune of almost 1,000 crores of rupees, of which recently I told you a couple of months back that the first tranche of 642 crores or so that we applied for was granted to us by the government without any modification. Coming more specifically to your question, I'll start with the three-wheeler where, as you said in your introduction, we are now the market leader in E3 wheelers. We've been in the top two with Mahindra for a long time, but in recent months we are clearly pulling away to the number one position. We are close to the 40% market share at which we hope to close this month, representing 10,000 vehicles a month, which is not a small volume. But our ambition is very clear: in the ICE three-wheeler market in India we have 70% share, and we are not going to stop till we get this 40% to 70%. In the E2 market where our brand is the Chetak, again we are in the top two as you mentioned, but there I must admit that TVS has been ahead more months than we have. We are now stabilized at about 30,000 vehicles a month, having overcome the supply chain issues and other operating issues, and our capacity will be up to 40,000 across the supply chain from April. So that's what we've set our eyes on as the next target. The answer to your question, what's the way forward? The way forward in this business is always product strategy in the widest sense of the term. And I feel very confident that we will continue to be a very significant EV company, if not the largest EV company in India, for some time. So you said sir that you will increase electric two-wheeler production to 40,000 units by March, by next month.
By April that will be our capacity, and of course we will be ready to make that. Hopefully Rakesh can stir up demand in line with that.
On that note we take a short break, but don't go anywhere. This conversation with Rajiv Bajaj continues on the other side.
Welcome back. You're watching CNBC TV18 and we are in an exclusive conversation with Rajiv Bajaj, the managing director of Bajaj Auto. EV subsidies, especially the central level subsidies, are going to end in March this year. How is that going to impact the electric two-wheeler segment?
Well, my view on subsidies, Parikshit, is diametrically opposite to that on ROTEP. As I said, ROTEP is the antidote for some of the negatives here. In terms of subsidies, I've said this to you before. I believe subsidies mask realities, subsidies slow innovation, and subsidies push inefficiency. So frankly, in principle, I have to say I'm not for subsidies. I'm glad the subsidy on three-wheelers, electric three-wheelers, is gone. I hope it is not going to come back. I believe that it is set to end with electric two wheelers also on 31st March. I hope that happens. Because I think that's really not sustainable for the way forward. Plus, let's ask ourselves fundamentally what is holding consumers back from electric vehicles? Why isn't penetration rising as quickly as we would like it to? There's fundamentally three issues. There is the issue of safety, which I think now is more or less behind us. There are concerns around the replacement of the battery as and when battery life is over. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But for now, the third most important criteria is range. And I think all the money that's been given to OEMs or to customers as subsidies should actually have been put into infrastructure for supporting the EV ecosystem. That's a bus we missed. But anyway, what's happened has happened. Let's move forward from here without subsidies, with more innovation and more efficiency.
