Piaggio is all set to roll out its 100-150cc scooters including Vespa scooters by March 2010, after the Italian firm restricted its India operations to light commercial vehicles.

The Italian auto manufacturer will launch the well-known Vespa scooters followed by brands like Gilera, Aprilia and Derbi, a small motorcycle.

This will be the third coming of Vespa into the Indian market. Earlier it had an agreement with Bajaj Auto in 1960 and when the agreement expired Bajaj started making its own scooters under the brand name Chetak. Later it tied up with LML brand to make geared scooters, but the joint venture was broken in 1999.

Piaggio makes Ape three and four wheelers, called Ape Truk in its Baramati plant but all this should change with the third coming of Vespa into the Indian market. As the company is setting up an Rs 360-crore two-wheeler engine plant at Baramati to power its scooters, sources say.

The scooters market is heating up once again with the entry of Mahindra in this market which took over the Kinetic brand. Moreover, Honda Motorcycle and Scooters are the leader in two-wheeler segment with sales of 60,000 units a month, out of which 15000 unit are with a single model, Hero Honda leasure. TVS follows the trend with 23000 units a month.

This result shows the increasing demand of scooters in India and major reason for Vespa entering in market again.

Related News:
Mahindra Launches Rodeo & Duro Gearless Scooters in India
Bajaj Auto to manufacture scooter to compete with Honda Activa
LML announces latest version of NV brand scooter
New electric scooter Lectrix to be launched next month

Related Books:
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Scooter's Christmas

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Posted by Naresh Koshti on 13 October, 2009 3:15:49 PM IST #