Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Emkay Global Financial Services, I take the opportunity to welcome you all to Eicher Motors Q1 FY 2022 earnings call webinar. From management team, we have Mr. Siddhartha Lal, MD of Eicher Motors, Mr. Vinod Dasari, CEO of Royal Enfield, Mr. Kaleeswaran Arunachalam, CFO of Eicher Motors. We thank the management for providing us the opportunity to host the call. We request management for opening remarks, which can be followed by Q&A session. Over to you, sir.
Yeah. Good afternoon. Good evening to everybody, and welcome to the Eicher Motors earnings and quarterly call. Before I get into the financials and business update, you would've seen the announcement that Vinod Dasari has decided to leave Royal Enfield and he's continuing with his own hospital project that he's been working on, and his wife has been working on. I just want to take the opportunity to tell you that Vinod is going to be leaving, and this is his last call at Eicher Motors. I want to wish him all the very best, and we'll ask him to say a few words after this. I just want to also confirm that B. Govindarajan, who's been with Royal Enfield for over 20 years and who's currently the Chief Operating Officer, will be taking over as Executive Director in charge of all Royal Enfield business after Vinod leaves.
Vinod, would you say a few words first and then we can get on to the business update.
Thank you, Siddharth. I appreciate the kind words. I think it has been a fabulous, though short, journey at Royal Enfield. We had many external challenges like COVID and all that. We came through all of that and continued on our path to what we wrote down as RE 2.0 goals, which was to grow significantly outside India, which was to grow significantly in non-motorcycle. It was to substantially expand our digital transformation. All of that we did quite well, and I think the long-term plans of the company are solid. We, as a company, have always thought very long-term, so I'm super excited about the future of Royal Enfield. It's just that many years ago, we moved back to India and we wanted to do something for the society.
My wife was running a charitable clinic for quite some time and she was not able to serve the people completely because we didn't have a hospital. We invested what we saved into a hospital, and when we built this thing, she realized that she can't run it herself. It's a not-for-profit hospital and, well, Siddharth, just to correct you, it's not a hospital I built. My new boss will be quite upset. It is something that my wife built, and I'm going to be working closely with her in trying to at least bring this not-for-profit hospital to sustainable things, and all your best wishes will certainly be useful.
Vinod, thank you very much for all your tremendous contributions at RE, and we will certainly take on from there, myself and Govind and the team, and we will make you proud. Moving on to the financials and business update for Eicher Motors Limited. The first quarter of this financial year, like last year, was impacted by the pandemic, with the second wave of COVID running through most of April and May and some parts of June. Our manufacturing and retail operations were affected due to lockdown and other restrictions. We have continued to stay resilient and deliver on all our focus areas, and underscored by our best ever quarterly performance in export markets. We have actually had an absolutely stunning quarter from export perspective. We delivered a very large number of motorcycles across the world, including in the Americas, Europe, Asia.
We saw a fourfold increase year on year, and around a 28% increase from the previous quarter. That means the quarter ending March 31st. If you remove COVID comparisons, because they're low base to base, we actually had an 83% increase over Q1 of FY 2020. It's still a very large increase from pre-COVID. Of course, even in the domestic market, we had a good growth of 91%, but that was on a very low base of last year. On the VECV side, the trucking industry has witnessed an extremely tough quarter one after a relatively decent performance in Q4 of last year. Despite that, VECV registered a year-on-year growth of 167% in domestic market and 189% in international markets, again, on a low base of previous year.
Overall, as the economy recovers from the second wave. We do foresee the challenges easing out in this quarter already and in H2. The supply of parts and components and the growing pressure of escalating commodity prices continues to be an issue, particularly the semiconductor shortage, which is continuing to affect us across the board. We have lots of action plans for that. We are working steadily towards improving the situation. Our suppliers are working towards that. We have alternate sources also in the works. There's a lot of action in the works, but that is still one of the bottlenecks because our demand position is strong on motorcycles for sure. Now the supplier has to rise up to meet the demand.
The consolidated financials for EML for the first quarter are, we had a revenue of INR 1,974 crores, which is up 141% from a low base last year. We had an EBITDA of INR 363 crores against INR 4 crores last year. The EBITDA margin was at 18.4%, despite, of course, a much lower volume because of COVID situation. Resulting in a profit after tax of INR 237 crores this year against a loss last year. That's our overall background and business update and all, let's say, the overall update. Now, Vinod, you could maybe give us a full overview of Royal Enfield and its first quarter of this financial year.
Thank you, Siddhartha. As far as Royal Enfield is concerned, we sold 122,000 motorcycles, more than double of last year, where we had 58,000 motorcycles. Highest ever exports, as Sid mentioned in a quarter, increase of more than 400% at 17,500 motorcycles. In India, sales were impacted due to the nationwide lockdown, COVID wave two and all. Our market share remained at about 28%, similar to where we were the year before at about 30%. We significantly enhanced our focus on non-motorcycle business. Apparel, accessories and spares delivered tremendous growth. We are on track to achieving our objective of increasing the share of non-motorcycle to total revenue by 2%- 20%. As Sid mentioned, the international success shows continuous progress on our vision of becoming a global motorcycling brand.
We had a four-fold increase in exports year-on-year, more than 28% increase sequentially and an 83% increase compared to Q1 FY 2020. The solid performance in Americas is what supported the overall growth. Even in U.K., Royal Enfield topped two segments for June, both in customs as well as the modern classic, where the Meteor did very well on the custom segment and the Interceptor did very well on the modern classic. We were the top-selling motorcycle brand in New Zealand in June, and we are among the top three motorcycle brands in midsize segment in Thailand. As you might have seen in the news, we commenced local assembly operations in Colombia. It's the third biggest motorcycle market in Latin America, and with a dedicated unit in Manizales.
This is our second CKD plant in international markets after Argentina, and we'll continue to work towards more. To begin with, the plant will locally assemble the Royal Enfield Himalayan from this month. As far as production is concerned, it was impacted due to the lockdowns and the supply chain disruptions. As you might have heard, the ABS and the semiconductor shortage continue to affect the ramp-up efforts. We're working towards quickly resolving these issues with our partners, and we are also finding some alternate sources. On the retail network, though, we continued our domestic network expansion plan. Over the last two years or so, we have more than doubled our network, and we are now more than 2,000 stores. International, we continue to expand in international markets with an addition of 8 exclusive stores and 19 new multi-branded outlets.
With this, the total exclusive stores outside India is 140, and we have 650 multi-branded outlets. In all this, Meteor continues to be a tremendous success. It was launched in U.S., U.K., Europe, Asia Pacific and LATAM after the successful launch in India last year. It has got great reception and strong Q1 performance across Europe and Americas. It has won almost every award that you can think of, including International Motor Show award in Indonesia, Motoring World awards and Bike India awards and so on. It does deliver on our commitment to grow and expand the size of motorcycles. We are truly excited because it is not just a motorcycle, but a whole platform that we are launching. Along with this platform, we had, for the first time, launched it on the Make It Yours digital platform.
It was an industry first personalization where people can design their motorcycles and we make it specifically for them. They can design it on their mobile phone and place the order. Complete paradigm shift. Nobody has to go to the stores anymore and so on. All our 2,000 stores are now MiY enabled, and MiY adoption has the parallel benefit of all the accessory penetration going up significantly.
80% of our bookings now for a Meteor, Classic, Himalayan, and Twins are now coming via the MiY. We're going to upgrade this and take it to the next level in near future with future launches. We slowly started coming back to the rides as we continue to nurture the spirit of pure motorcycling to enable stronger connect between riders and their machines. Royal Enfield got the top two places in the inaugural races of the Dirt Track Riders Association in U.K., and our first ever half mile win at American Flat Track in Lima, Ohio, half mile race. To encourage more and more enthusiasts from diverse backgrounds to embrace riding, we introduced a second edition of BTR or Build, Train, and Race. This is our women's only racing program in the USA. The market recovery has started well.
With the market still recovering from the second wave of pandemic, we foresee the situation with production and supply chain constraints to be slowly coming back. It will persist for a little bit, it will come back. We continue to be on track with our expansion plans and product-related initiatives. None of our long-term plans got affected by all this pandemic. We continue to work harder. In fact, it gave us an opportunity to accelerate several things. We expect the production to scale up and the sales to improve in the second half of the year as the chip situation starts to improve. Over to you, back to you, Siddhartha.
Yeah, thanks. I'll just give you an update on VECV financials and business performance. The revenue for VECV was INR 1,639 crore, which is up 156% from a low base last year. The EBITDA was at INR 18 crore versus a loss of INR 72 crore last year, resulting in a 1.1% EBITDA margin. Profit after tax, there's a net loss of INR 72 crore against a loss of INR 120 crore last year. The total sales were at 5,800 units, up 173% from last year. Of course, the second wave has impacted business a lot, as you see. Quarter 1 was challenging. However, with the improvement in COVID situation and the economy looking up, we are certainly seeing an improvement in the entire CV industry and in VECV performance as well. We are expecting that already in Q2 and beyond.
We've been working closely with partners and suppliers and customers in various ways, whether it's in extending warranties for our customers and supporting our dealers in medical support and financial support. There's been a lot of work going on to get everyone back on stream. We have had a few very successful product launches in the meanwhile as well. The Eicher Skyline ambulance has come into the market with very good life-saving features, et cetera. We've also introduced the Eicher Pro 3015XP, which is India's first 17.5 ton truck, which expands our light and medium duty product range from earlier 15 tons to now 17.5 tons. We also have been doing very well on CNG because the opportunity is very strong in light and medium duty trucks on the CNG side and because of support from government and very good cost economics.
VECV has really strengthened its position in the CNG segment through a wide range of offerings now. That's the overview for VECV, for Royal Enfield and for EML as a whole. Now, we're on to the question- and- answer.
Thank you, Siddhartha. We will be opening the Q&A session for participants. Anyone who has a question, please use the raise hand option. Participants request you to limit your questions to 2 per participant. Once the participant is called out, please unmute yourself to ask a question. As the question queue assembles, a couple of questions from my side. Firstly, can you give some color on current production situation? Can you talk of ramp up of production in coming quarters in light of the semiconductor shortages? Media reports today are indicating revised production schedule or target of 6.50 lakh- 6.90 lakh for FY 2022. My second question is, Mr. Dasari's exit has come as a surprise. Considering various strategic plans, how do you see the smooth transition process? Thank you, sir.
Maybe I'll take this. Sorry, Siddhartha.
No, you can do that, Kaleeswaran Arunachalam, if you're up for it.
Sorry. On the 1st question, typically, we don't give a full year plan of where do we land on the volume, et cetera. Having said that, there has been constraints that you have seen on account of COVID and then on account of the chip shortage that has been coming in. There are plans that we are working on to see what are the opportunities on alternate vendors, how the existing vendors can scale up over a period of time. As an output of that, you would see the supplies gradually resuming back and coming back to its original levels. Q3 of last year, you would have already seen we touched a peak of about 80-odd thousand in terms of production.
There are challenges at this point of time, but we are confident that as the long term, it will get addressed and our plans are intact for long term. Sidd, you may want to add and take up the second question.
Vinod, you could start, and then I can take on the rest of the second part of the question.
As I said that earlier, we as a company always take long-term decisions and long-term strategic calls. In some cases, we made substantial progress, whether it was international growth or digital transformation or the non-motorcycle portion of the growth. Sid likes to refer to me as a pinch hitter in cricket. I came and played my Hardik Pandya innings or something like that and got things moving. I think that COVID was, in a way, a sort of a blessing, because we were able to accelerate a lot of other things that were otherwise stalled. Now we have a fantastic team. I was there merely for two years. This is a fantastic company who's got an amazing track record of success, and these short-term things like chip shortage and all are not going to burden this company.
We have strong plans, a very strong team, an excellent brand, and they will go forward and make success a habit again.
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for that, Vinod. I think in the last couple of years, Vinod has made some absolutely tremendous contributions at Royal Enfield and put us on a very good track. Govindarajan, who's been the CEO since 2013, is now taking over running of the business at Royal Enfield. I will, of course, continue to work with him directly and work on all of our plans in Royal Enfield. We're very confident of our future, of course, and we wish Vinod all the best.
Thank you, sir. Moving ahead to the question queue. First, we have the first question from Binay Singh. Binay, please go ahead.
Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity. Best wishes to you, Vinod. It's been a long time since we've been interacting with you. Best wishes for the new venture. I'll go back to the question that Raghu asked. There's a very specific number given in the article today in media, that the company is talking about targeting 650,000-690,000 units production this year. Are you denying that? As per your internal estimate, is it going to be higher than that? It's a very specific number given out. Which is why I do appreciate your comment that production will improve from here on, how would you look at it in terms of range that is being commented on?
Vinay, firstly, we don't give forward guidance, whatever you're reading is speculative. It's not come from us. Therefore, that certainly hasn't come from us directly. As we see it, we have a strong demand position. We've got an order book. As you can see, our exports is really flying high, and we've got a lot of export orders as well. Really, it's all about improving our production. Honestly, the one bottleneck, there will be smaller bottlenecks, because it is extremely turbulent times, so it's not business as usual at all in any respect, as you can understand. The main bottleneck, I would say, to increasing our production is semiconductor shortage. We are working on it on many different fronts.
We've got a lot of actions going on in order to improve that position, whether it's with our current suppliers, where there's also traction of improvement in by the end of the quarter, perhaps, and certainly in H2, but it's not a straight increase. It's more of a step increase that we're going to see over the next many months. We've also been working over the last year, in fact, on alternates as well. We could see traction there. We are all hands on deck in getting our production numbers as high as we can at this point.
Thanks for that, Siddhartha. My second question is on the gross profit per unit. As per my estimate, it seems like Royal Enfield has posted an all-time high gross profit per unit this quarter. I assume it would have come from combination of factors. Could you talk a little bit about the export number that we are seeing, almost 18,000 a quarter. Is it sustainable? Secondly, linked to that, Vinod talked about accessories reaching 20% of the target. Is that already becoming sizable, that it's contributing to this gross profit? Could you talk a little bit about that? Thanks.
Vinay, in terms of gross profit, as you rightly said, it's a combination. Partially, the gross profit has improved on account of international mix being higher and also on account of model mix that has happened in India. Most importantly, the pricing actions have also started yielding results in terms of at least getting back to our margin trajectory that we wanted to. It's a combination of all the three. We do see our export business as a sustainable one. The demand has been quite good, and as we move forward, we should see good traction. On apparel and accessories, the growth has been strong. Post MiY, we have seen our GMA business going up significantly. The long-term targets that we always been discussing about as a range, I think we would be able to achieve that, both on exports and in non-motorcycle.
Great. Thanks for that.
Thank you. Next we have a question from Jinesh Gandhi. Jinesh, please go ahead.
Thanks, Raghu. My question pertains to apparels and accessories. While our target is 20%, where we are currently with respect to those numbers? That's my first question. Second question pertains to the order book, which Siddhartha was referring to. What level of order book we have currently? Lastly, with respect to the new Classic launch, if you can share the timelines, given that it has been getting deferred because of unforeseeable circumstances. Thanks.
Yeah. Jinesh, unfortunately, I think your questions have got numbers, which typically, as you would know, we don't discuss. At this point of time, the non-motorcycle business is pretty small in terms of size. We are seeing significant progress in terms of let it be the penetration of GMA or the average bill value going up. We do see that to sustain over a period of time, driven by MiY, coupled with the new launches that would come in. We don't talk about our new product launches and calendar. You would hear more about it as you go through the quarter. Sorry, there was one more question. Anything I've missed out?
Order book.
Again, we don't call out specific numbers on order book. We have a healthy order book at this point of time. We would see as to how do we cater that link to production as we move forward to the other quarters.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Next we have a question from Kapil Singh. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vinod. Wonderful initiative. Wish you all the best for the same. May I clarify if the company plans to hire anyone in the CEO position?
We are not hiring anyone in the CEO position. Govind is taking full charge of Royal Enfield business, and I plan to work very closely with Govind on everything, and the same management team continues. There's no new hires planned at the senior level at Royal Enfield.
Sure.
For the CEO position.
Sure, Sid. I have two questions. Firstly, can you please comment on the demand environment currently? Because we are not able to see the real volumes because of these shortages. Where is the underlying level of demand right now? If there were no production constraints, what would you be shipping? That's the first question. Second is, on electrification, how do you think about electrification in your segments in the long run? Is it very far off or do you think it could happen in next five, seven years?
On the demand side, I think it's a mixed bag to comment as to what has caused what. Even as we speak right now, there has been intermittent lockdowns that you're seeing in many states. Karnataka is into a weekend lockdown and a night curfew. Tamil Nadu has got a lockdown after 5:00 P.M., et cetera. I think wherever we have opened, the traction has been good, and it will be linked to production as to how do we cater to the demand as we move forward. On the EV side from a business strategy perspective, both on the product and business development, we have got our teams in place. Having said that, for the segment that we operate specifically, which is the mid-size, we think it will be a slightly long-term process in terms of when the vehicle would be on road.
We are not leaving any stones unturned from our perspective in strategizing and operationalizing our EV business model. Sid Vinod, if you'd like to add anything.
Yeah, just to reiterate, of course, demand position is continuously improving as the second wave is dying down in the country, in India. As you've seen in international markets, it's very healthy for us. Again, we can't break out numbers, but it is growing well. We have a strong order book and it really all focuses on production at this point. I like the way you framed the EV point. You said, is it a long term or five to seven years? I really like that because those are the kind of timelines we're looking at. It's not next year or the year after. That's not when things will happen in our opinion.
Of course, there will be product, there will be ups and downs, there will be some headway here and there. We are really focused on the long term. That's five to seven years, then beyond. We've taken the opportunity to take many steps back to look at a clean sheet of paper. We've been doing that for three years. We've got a very good team, capable EV team, working on the consumer side, working on the technology side, working on the business side. We're really confident of our approach to EV. Having said that, we are extremely deliberate.
As you've seen in the last many years, it's not the number of launches which is as important as the quality of the motorcycles and the precision of the motorcycle in terms of being able to penetrate the market and to take share, and to pull the market in our case, because in India, we are not really taking share much from people. We're just growing the market. Even in EV, that's very much the approach, which is that we're forming the product strategy, the game plan. We're working on technology. We are putting all those things together. It will be a few years before you see anything from us, but that's because it's a very deliberate plan.
When we do come with the motorcycles at the right time, because I think you also insinuated that the market is not really ready in India for sure, from a price value equation. Currently, it's way off. An equivalent EV is maybe still double the price, if you were to sell it with any margin, than an equivalent petrol bike. It's really not the right time to make a big entry into the market, just because the economics don't work for consumers, even with all the benefits and other things. We will hopefully time it right so that we're not in a position where we have to lose too much money or anything of the sort. We're working tremendously on EV.
We are extremely bullish about our own EV strategies, but it is in the five to seven-year horizon where a lot more will happen in Royal Enfield on the EV front.
Thank you. Great answer. Thank you.
Next we have Venugopal Garre. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks a lot. Firstly, best of luck, Vinod, for your new initiative. I have just two small questions. One is on the product launch cycle. Given the challenges you're seeing on the supply side, the last launch for us was probably around 11 months back. I'm assuming that given that you had a fairly healthy pipeline, two things might be happening. One is bunching up of products. I'm assuming you would want to still keep some gap between two launches. Number two is, with the shortages on the supply side, how does it sort of alter your next launch or the launch, which is probably imminent? That's the first question.
Yeah, there is, of course, that issue. If you're not able to produce enough, you can't really launch a product. You need enough stock to launch a new product because in our case now, we've seen that there's enormous demand in the early stages, and if you can't fulfill that, it could even have detrimental effects on the new product. That's only a couple of months here and there. It's not the biggest issue. We want to make sure that we do it right. That's the approach you've seen from Royal Enfield in the last many years, that no shortcuts, do it absolutely right, and we believe that's really helping us in every single way possible. There will be some bunching up, but we are well aware of that. There will be some pushback and other such things.
Really, I think as we, hopefully, if there's no other major situation, as we move forward in the next few months, the supply side, as you talked about, will also certainly improve. Our product cycle should get back on track. There is no question, because of the severe lockdowns that we faced also in the last few months, that there has been some pushback by a few months, but it's only two months at most in most cases for a new product.
Thanks, Siddharth. The second question is, see the chip shortage part, sorry for asking this again, but is it worsening compared to what it was earlier? Because it's not related just to you. We understand that other auto companies also have been highlighting that fairly vocally for a long period of time now. Is it worsening compared to earlier? Number two is, when I speak to semiconductor companies, which we have done over the past few months as well, they do indicate that usually auto companies do get an advance alert because it takes about a few months of production cycle for the product to come out. In that sense, what you're seeing today, does it really surprise you in terms of the shortage that you're getting hit right now?
Well, the thing is, it's very turbulent, because things have been evolving a lot. While some parts of the supply chain have improved, and for chips, unfortunately, this is not at all under our control. It's not even in India. We were reviewing it recently. In some cases, there's seven different countries, three different continents where the thing gets processed before coming into our shores in Chennai. It's quite complex. It is turbulent. One day we'll get better news, the next day we'll get worse news. The general trend now, as we're seeing, is that there will be step-by-step improvements. Not one day, enormous improvement over the next few months, but there's going to be small step-by-step improvement in supplies. For us, I'm talking about particularly in Royal Enfield.
We've also activated, over a year ago, additional suppliers and other things for different components that we have. We should be making use of that as well in the coming months. We do see a better situation in the coming months. It's still a bit cautious because I would say for the next many months, we're not going to get our peak requirement. Whatever our peak requirement is, that's not going to come yet, but it will be a step-by-step improvement over the, let's say, course of the rest of this year. Hopefully by the end of the year, it should be nearly at the right level. Yeah, that's how it is.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Next we have a question from Gunjan Prithyani. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks, team, for taking my questions and all the best, Vinod, for pursuing this noble cause. Two questions from my side. Firstly, Kaleeswaran Arunachalam, if you can talk about the kind of cost headwinds we are seeing going into the next few months and what kind of price increases we have taken in this fiscal. Is there still a case of under-recovery on the cost side? That's my first question. I'll get to second after that.
Sure. I think as of date, including the price actions we have taken in July, Gunjan, it has helped us to protect the gross margin that we have been running at last year level. Last quarter level, to be precise. Going forward, we do see commodity headwinds to continue, but may not be to the extent that what we have seen in the last two quarters, Q3 and Q4. Accordingly, we may have to review the situation and take pricing actions as we move to the coming quarters between Q2 to Q4.
If I get it right, until now, we are fully covered up for all the cost inflation we have seen.
That's right.
From here on, we do anticipate further pressures going into the September quarter.
Yeah. May not be to the extent that we have seen.
Is it possible to give us some quantification of that?
Pretty difficult to predict that, Gunjan, at this point of time. I think you have seen up to Q3 last year, the inflation was almost nothing. In December, everyone saw almost 80% of the commodity inflation hitting in there. The only thing is that kind of spike, we don't envy such. It could be in low single digits at this point of time. We will get into details as we look at the specific quarter.
Okay. My second question is a little bit broader level. When I go through your annual report, you do touch upon a point that we've seen some decline on the financing side in the industry. It could be explained by the way we've seen the asset quality deteriorating with the NBFCs and the banking sector. Could you just talk a little bit about it? Is that a real concern for the industry, particularly at a time where we are seeing such a steep product inflation as well?
Difficult to comment it on industry level, but let me restrict it to Royal Enfield. Our penetration post-COVID, which had hit us somewhere around last year Q1, we continue to be around 45%-47%, which is in the range. We have not dropped significantly. In terms of asset quality and risks, Royal Enfield is probably one of the lowest in terms of delinquency ratio at the industry level. We don't see that as a significant challenge for consumer. We are working on ways, how can we improve the user experience and customer interface when he goes through financing, as he comes to us, across models and across other financing opportunities through existing and new banking partners. That's what we are looking at.
Okay, got it. Raghu, can I pitch in one, if it's okay?
I would suggest you come back in queue.
Okay, sure. No worry.
Next we have a question from Manoj. Please go ahead. Manoj, can you unmute yourself?
Yeah. Hi, very good evening, thanks for taking my question. Just would like to understand, Sid. Maybe we can understand the near-term challenges. If we have to look from a maybe little mid to long-term perspective, we have indicated both in terms of new launches as well as the way the export is really shaping up now. From a mid to long-term perspective, how should we look at the overall growth in the franchise?
There was a disturbance. Can you just?
Yes. Shall I repeat my question?
Yeah. Yes, please.
Yeah. Sid, one, obviously we have seen a very strong correction in the export business. Would just like to pick your mind in terms of the way we have spoken in the past, and I think some of the strategies which we have implemented are now obviously giving us the kind of results. Maybe from a little mid to long-term perspective, how do we see this export business? Particularly, if one would like to focus in terms of your Southeast Asian market and the LATAM market.
Yeah. We took a call many years ago that from being an opportunistic exporter, let's say, we want to become a truly global firm and a truly global motorcycle brand. All of this is emanating from that concept, because we truly believe that there's a gap out there in the world of motorcycling or in mid-size market. Therefore, we strategically set up the infrastructure, as you can say. For us, the infrastructure was about the right distribution, the right aftermarket support, and we have very strong teams in markets around the world. We have our own teams across the world. We have very clear plans to become global leader in the midsize market and to grow the midsize market the same way as we've done in India.
In India also, pretty much from scratch, we were able to grow the market towards nearly, at least pre-COVID, was around 1 million level, the size of the market and growing. That's really the track we're on. As you can see, the products that we've launched have also been with a global perspective. The first truly global product in our portfolio were the Twins, which were developed, launched, and the success has been really strong. The Himalayan has also been extremely strong. Now the Meteor, which is in the old
Here's people would say, well, the 350 is not really relevant for international markets. It's doing exceptionally well around the world. It's been made with a global market in mind, doing absolutely exceptionally well. We are extremely determined. Our ambition is to be, in fact, the first global consumer brand from India, and we're on track towards that. The results in the last quarter are maybe, I would say, a good glimpse into what we're planning in the future. There's a lot of new product, as we talked about in our portfolio. We're doing a lot of work on continually expanding our distribution and reach. Across the world, we are seeing that the best dealers around the world are now coming to us and wanting our business. Earlier, we had to plead with dealers to keep our bikes.
Now it's the other way around because they're seeing the traction of Royal Enfield around the world. It's a strong virtuous cycle. We are able to take the advantage of our enormous scale, and our scale is unparalleled in the motorcycle industry, in the mid-size market, and our strong home market advantage, and able to have very strong product at the right price in markets around the world. With a very strong brand story. It's not just a commoditized product, it's a brand story that's also selling, and that's also helping us get much higher margins, as you can see. Yeah, this is certainly our future. I think Royal Enfield is going to be a global brand, and we are working well towards that.
You're right about asking about Asian and LATAM markets, because even in our initial assumptions on international markets, we said we want to make a lot of Southeast Asian and LATAM markets like our home market because there's a strong commuter base which is upgrading, and that is absolutely on track. We're able to crack the commuter market in these countries and have them upgrade like we had them do in India. We're very successful in that. Having said that, what has actually positively surprised us tremendously is the enormous traction we're getting in richer countries as well, such as Europe and U.S. and Japan and Australia, New Zealand, Korea, because there is a huge amount of spending power in these countries.
If something clicks, that means there's a motorcycle that catches your fancy, $4,000, $5,000, or $6,000 is really not much at all for consumers in these markets to even do an impulse purchase nearly as it were. Maybe it's not as impulse, but it's nearly like that. That's the direction we're heading in. We're actually getting enormous traction in Europe and Americas as well, which is very positive for us. Yeah, I'd say the international business is really panning out strongly and we are seeing what it could be in the future, which is very exciting.
Thanks for a very detailed answer. Second, Sidd, just would like to understand your thought process for elevating Mr. Govind as Executive Director and CEO. While obviously he has been in the company for so long and he has done extremely well with regard to manufacturing and other functions. As a CEO, obviously, there are multiple other responsibilities which one need to take care. Given that he doesn't come from the background of sales, marketing and other activities, how do you think probably he's getting into the shoes of Mr. Dasari and taking the companies to the next level?
Well, hopefully you'll have an occasion to talk to him also at some point. Govind is one lesser known fact is that, as COO for a few years, he was also heading the India business. He has had three years. We keep circulating and keep, let's say, giving opportunities to people to develop. I did, at one point when I was the CEO, give him the opportunity to run the India business for three years. He understands that. He's extremely methodical and detail-oriented, and he's able to understand that. He's got an excellent rapport and you can say relationship with dealers. He knows everyone in the company very well. He's traveled across the world, meeting our distributors and team members. He has got a lot of exposure in that area.
Of course, like I said, his strength is in. Even though he was from manufacturing, he was given the charge of product development when he became CEO in 2013. He's absolutely been instrumental in overhauling the product development of Royal Enfield, the new product introduction as well. He's able to take new tasks or new areas which are the bottleneck of the company and take it to much higher levels. He has that experience in sales marketing. He has a very strong team with him in sales marketing, and I'm also there to work with him and support him on the commercial areas, which I can also certainly support him in. I don't see that as a challenge at all. In fact, I think it's a strong succession that we've been building and has come into place.
Thanks. Wish you all the best. Best wishes to Vinod, you.
Can I just make a comment on one of the chat points that came up saying, why am I so quiet? Have I given up or no? Absolutely not. I'm going to be keenly watching this company go from success to success. In my short term, I've been able to contribute in whatever little way that I could. I don't want to talk about the future. It's up to Sid and Kalees and the rest of the team to be talking about the future. Since most of the questions are about the future, I'm staying out of it. If the question was about the last one quarter, I would have answered it. Please don't take my silence as like I've given up. I still own shares of Eicher, and I'll continue to expect them to perform better so that I can earn some money.
Thanks, Vinod, for that, and wishing you all the best for the noble endeavors ahead. Next, we have a question from Chirag Shah. Chirag, please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity and all the best, Vinod. Siddharth, one question I have is on the production side, what level of production? Am I audible?
Yeah, I can hear you now. Yeah. Just speak up a bit. Thanks.
Hello, am I audible now? Hello.
Yeah. Yes, Chirag, I can hear you.
Yeah.
We can hear you.
My question is, what level of production will give you comfort to start the new model cycle or the launches that you are planning and which have got postponed? Is there a particular level of volume, like 60,000 or 70,000 a month kind of visibility of production will give you confidence that we have the requisite supply in place to launch the model? Is there any kind of thought process in mind when Let me ask you other way around. What will give you comfort to start the model cycle, say, tomorrow, whatever launches you wanted to plan, planning tomorrow itself?
Chirag, good question. It's not about production level as such. As you can appreciate, there's two parts. One is, when the factories were down, you can't really do much. When the shutters are down for the stores, there's no point in really launching a new product, even if only half the shutters were down. The real question is, like I said, you'll appreciate that for a new product, getting the requisite parts, as it were, for that product, it's a new product. Even the suppliers are maybe not used to it at this point, as it were. It's easier to get the old product parts, as it were. The only thing, Chirag, that we've been waiting on any new product is to get the requisite parts available, because all the validation work, everything, all of that, let's say, is behind us.
It's only a buildup of parts for the new products. Once we have the right buildup of parts for the new product so that we can not only supply the initial quantity to dealers to sell, but also follow it up with quantities in the coming months. We don't want to be caught flat-footed that we don't have the old product or we don't have the new product, right? It's a bit of that that we're doing. There's no level as such that it needs to be 50,000 or 80,000 units per month, only then we'll be ready. We can be ready at any point. That's not the constraint, the factor. Yeah, by and large, we are seeing now that things are starting to improve. We are on a good track for any new launches that we may have.
Yeah, this was really helpful. Second question is on the export market, especially Continental and Himalayan. In the locations where you have presence since a reasonable long time, a brief about customer profiling and how it has expanded over a period of time. It would be helpful.
Let's go back a few years. When our mainstay was Classic 500, our customer was on an average over 50 years old, and looking at a vintage replacement type of motorcycle. That profile has changed tremendously over the last many years. Of course, in developed countries, you still have a slightly higher proportion of older motorcyclists, which is great. They have great disposable income. They're very interested in coming into new bikes or A lot of people who've ridden a sports bike, let's say, in their twenties, thirties, now want to sort of take it a bit more easy, right? They want to sort of have a nice upright bike. That's certainly an audience in the forties that we're getting. Of course, I'm still talking about developed countries. As you go into developing markets, we're getting a large number of upgraders like we have in India.
There, the average ages are younger just because these are people who have been commuters, and now they want to upgrade to something more special. It's all working out in terms of actually a relatively broad variety of customers. Himalayan is clearly a younger audience that we're selling to across the world, compared to, let's say, the Twins also. It's a very good spread. I think it's a very good spread now that we've got.
Yeah. Thank you, and all the best.
Thanks a lot .
Given the paucity of time, we come to the end of the call. On behalf of Emkay Global, we thank the management for the opportunity and request management for closing remarks.
Thank you very much. It's, of course, as you know, been a tough year and a half for everybody. I just want to reiterate that at Royal Enfield and at Eicher Motors, we keep our ear very close to the ground. We're a super focused company. We don't do too many things, so we have all our attention on our core business and on the entire value chain around it. We're able to put enormous managerial attention behind the smallest of issues and concerns. That is really, I would say, what we continue to do, which is to keep our ear on the ground and just keep moving forward. I'd, of course, like to thank Vinod once again for his tremendous contributions to Royal Enfield.
As I've been saying, as a pinch hitter who's come in and really showed us a very good direction at Royal Enfield and a good pace of working. I'd like to thank him tremendously and maybe give him the opportunity to give the last few remarks.
Thank you, Siddhartha. I appreciate that. I would like to thank all the participants on this call for all their support in all my corporate roles. I hope that you don't need my services because I'll be running a hospital or a healthcare initiative. If you're ever in Chennai, let me show you something that is truly close to my heart. With all your best wishes, I hope I can do much more service to the society. Thank you very much, and wish you all a safe and healthy year going ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, everyone.