Kinetic to reposition some of its models

Venkatachari Jagannathan
18 October 2007

The company will convert its scooterette Kine, a model whose sales are expected to be impacted by Flyte, into an electric bike. Also on the cards is a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) powered vehicle.

Kinetic Motor Company''s latest launch, the 125cc Flyte, priced at Rs.36,499 (ex-showroom in Chennai) is expected to eat into the markets of its other models like the 72cc Kine a scooterette priced at Rs.27,500 Nova 135 priced at Rs.38,500 and 4S sold at Rs.38,000.

Flyte belongs to Taiwanese company SYM and last year the Indian company had entered into an agreement to make and sell the vehicles here. SYM has taken 11 per cent stake in Kinetic Motor Company.

The Indian company has also entered into an agreement it Italjet of Italy to make its models in India for the Indian market. Already the company has launched a premium end scooter called Blaze priced at Rs.58,950.

Interestingly Kinetic Motor Company has plans to launch a new 135cc scooter belonging to Italjet sometime soon. The model is named as Euro.

Speaking about the cannibalisation of the company''s own models by the Indian made foreign vehicles Ajinkya Firodia, senior vice president- Sales & Marketing says, "We expect Flyte to eat into the sales of our existing scooter/scooterette models to the tune of 30 per cent. However in volume terms Flyte will more than compensate the loss."