he signs may not be glaringly obvious yet, but the humble scooter is definitely re-establishing its footprint in India�s two-wheeler landscape. With a minor difference, though: there�s practically nothing humble about the new generation of scooters that have entered (or are entering) the market. And while for many older Indians the image of a scooter is defined by the clunky but functional Bajaj Chetaks that once crisscrossed our roads, for younger consumers, a scooter is a sleek, purring machine that is equally about style and attitude.

Small wonder then that after steadily ceding ground to motorcycles for almost a decade now, scooter sales finally registered an upswing last year. In 2000-01, scooter sales stood at 1.14 million units. In the following fiscal, the scooter market tanked, with sales dropping to 0.73 million units. It further plummeted to 0.60 million units in 2003-04 from 0.72 million in 2002-03. However, with sales in 2004-05 closing at 0.70 million - a growth of close to 17 per cent over 2003-04 - the seemingly endless slide has been arrested. Even though motorcycle sales are still outstripping those of scooters and the 0.70 million figure is nowhere near what the scooter market registered even five years ago, the fact is that scooters in India appear to have turned a significant corner.... more