Let's now focus on what was being highlighted as well on the auto stocks. We are seeing a bigger impact today on a bunch of them. Let's pull up the Nifty Auto and show you that radar on the screen as well, because the September auto sales have come through. You have to realize that there was an impact of the base effect also coming in for all the GST rate cuts from September 22nd onwards. You saw a gush of sales come through. But even the first half was slightly slower. So, to just get some more perspective of all of those key aspects for Bajaj Auto, we are now being joined by Rakesh Sharma. He is the joint MD of the company now joining in. Mr. Sharma, very good afternoon to you, sir. Thank you for joining in as always.
Just wanted to start off with the sales number. Of course, the export growth continues to be strong, but has come off a little bit even from what levels you've seen of almost 40 to 50% growth. Domestic has been slower and it's something that we spoke about the last time that there have been product interventions. My question being, is there any particular one-offs that have impacted both the export and the domestic market number in this particular month?
Hi, good afternoon. Indeed, the one-off as you're calling it is entirely on the constraints which we have faced on the supply chain side. I think we lost a substantial volume for billing in our electric two-wheeler Chetak, almost 20,000 units because of the late arrival of certain components due to logistic issues and unforeseen and unfortunate issues over there. Otherwise, we would have seen a much higher level of sales of Chetak to our dealers. Even though from a market share point of view, the retails have held on, but as you can imagine, the stocks are running very, very low. Stock-outs in many, many dealerships, and we are of course having a very vigorous booking program, which hopefully in October will result — we'll be able to translate into retails.
Besides that, we lost about, I think, 15,000 units despite all the ducks being in a row for the exports business. Again, these were logistic issues, internal constraints, availability of containers, shipping opportunities, which have continued to plague us over the last few months. But as you know, the month also went up and down from our Middle East stability point of view. And I must say that logistics — exports logistics in international business is a huge, you know, machinery which goes on because there's one container which leaves every 10 minutes from our plants 24/7. So, it's a big operation, and any disruption has an immediate impact. So, I think we lost 15,000 units for the month, but obviously these will sort of move forward into the next month, but I think we will continue to face these types of shipping opportunities. While in Chetak, I feel that the knot has resolved itself towards the closing end of the month so that at least from a component supply point of view, we will be able to max our capacity, which is running at 60 to 65,000 units depending on the mix. But exports might still face these logistics issues because the Middle East is not sort of quietening down.
And the third place where we had a lesser loss, but again because of supply chain constraint, was in our new product and premium models. Where the reception of the 10 new upgrades and new products which we have launched in the last quarter has been excellent and there have been segment-defining features like TFTs etc. which we simply ran out of. And like I've said in my interviews last month, that August and September is a point of inflection where the old Pulsars are being run down, the stocks are being run down and the new Pulsars are being introduced and that channel stock has to be built up. So August and September we are seeing that and I must say that the demand and the expectation ran ahead of what we could supply. But I see no reason why this should not catch up in October. So all in all, yes, we lost about 40,000 units because of sheer supply chain issues. If I put that back into the 538-odd thousand we have done, it sort of looks like a 13-14% growth over the last September.
Got it, got it. So understood and you know you addressed the four big key aspects that have impacted this month. So thank you for that. But Mr. Sharma, when I'm also looking at the first half of this year, you know, you had the advantage of the lower base of last year because of, you know, the GST rate cut effects coming in from October 2025. The growth differential between two-wheeler domestic as well as the export is quite stark. I think it's a number that we are looking at of almost 6% odd for the first six months of this year. A growth that you reported for export, that number is 47% for the two-wheeler business. Now you highlighted the challenges, you mentioned that the product introductions, all of those points well taken. But there's still something which is leading to this very divergent growth. Do you feel that that new brand that you've been speaking to us about, the delay of that is any particular reason or do you feel that the change of the whole product portfolio over the last 9 to 12 months has been taken slightly longer and hence not reflected in the numbers as of now?
Well, firstly, I would say that this comparison is flawed. It's like comparing apples and oranges. We look at domestic market and international markets quite independently and, you know, we do not get much intelligence out of that comparison. In fact, in international business also, we would look at the Africa region, the LatAm, and Asia as very, very distinct regions, and we have to set targets, set our ambitions based specifically on the situation in those regions. In exports, there has been, like I said, continued strong performance of Latin America, which now has been there for almost six, seven quarters, and we have a strong competitive position, number one position in the sports segment in many, many countries across Latin America. So, we are being able to harvest that benefit of that competitive position and are growing at more than twice the rate of the industry. Secondly, Africa, led by Nigeria, has shown, you know, a comeback. And again, as you know, that we have a very good competitive position over there with the dealership networks, brand channel platform being in position. And there again, we are going ahead of the market. So, Asia is sort of a mixed bag, and Middle East, as you can guess, is really in the negative. But that's only 5-7% of our sales. So, exports is responding — or the export story is a consequence of the market growth as well as a very superior competitive position in all these geographies which are seeing a rebound. In the domestic business, yes, last year we were facing product fatigue in our, you know, in the higher, the sport segment etc. in our flagship brand and we were acknowledging that, but November onwards last year we had slowly started to make new introductions and in quarter two, like I said, we have put in 10 new products and they are category-defining products. The N1600 SS with its ease and the upside-down forks etc. is a segment mark. And that is the growth now.
