Triumph Motorcycles has announced a global partnership with the world’s fourth biggest motorcycle manufacturer – Bajaj – to produce mid-capacity motorcycles.
It’s no secret Triumph were developing a 250cc single-cylinder motorcycle back in 2014, but the project was understood to have been scrapped in 2015 for ‘strategic reasons’, as announced at the time by the firm’s Commercial Director Paul Stroud.
With Norton announcing a deal to sell the design of its British-designed 650cc parallel twin engines in partnership Zongshen last week, and a range of BMW’s including the G310R being built in India by TVS, working with Chinese or Indian major manufacturers no longer seems to be an issue.
In fact, Triumph already assembles some of its motorcycles in India, Brazil and Thailand factories. The British company opened its first Thai plant some 15 years ago and builds a significant number of its bikes there for global distribution, with the Indian and Brazilian facilities catering for their local markets.
Announcing the Bajaj/Triumph partnership, Triumph said: “We hope to bring to bear upon global markets the individual strengths of the partners including brand position and perception, design and development technology, quality and cost competitiveness, and worldwide distribution. Some facts for you:
- Though little known by UK motorcyclists, Bajaj are the fourth largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world
- Bajaj are expected to produce a whopping 3,665,950 in financial year 2017
- To put this in perspective, Triumph sold a record 54,432 motorcycles in 2016, with India making up 1300 sales for the British brand last year across 12 models sold in 10 key Indian cities
- As well as their own brands, Bajaj currently builds some 100,000 KTMs under licence in India, and hopes to extend that to 200,000 Indian-made KTMs a year in the coming years, along with building KTM-owned Husqvarnas.
Partnering with a massive company like Bajaj is a sure-fire way to accelerate the production and development of key, smaller new Triumph models, and accelerate the company’s growth in the enormous Asian market.
Triumph continued: “This new global partnership will enable Triumph to significantly expand its global reach by entering new higher volume market segments, especially within the emerging markets across the world. Bajaj will gain access to the iconic Triumph brand, and its great motorcycles, enabling it to offer a wider range of motorcycles within its domestic market and other international markets.”
Insure your Triumph motorbike through Carole Nash.