Brand Update : TVS Apache reaps the benefit of racer sharp focus

 This October, Apache which is the indigenous performance bike from TVS reached a milestone of 40 lakh sales. Although this figure may be dwarfed by the sales of the likes of Bajaj which sells more than 1 lakh bikes a month while Hero sells around 3-4 lakhs two-wheelers in a month. However, as a student of marketing, the story of Apache is of persistence and continuous improvement that made this performance bike reach such a good sales milestone. 

Launched in 2006, the brand had a good start with its launch of 150 cc bike but later dwarfed by the competition which created multiple segments and dominated those segments in the higher cc performance bike market. In the game of volume sales, it is often easy to get deluded by the race for volume which has seen a lot of good brands biting the dust, TVS kept its patience and incrementally upgraded this brand with new variants and performance improvements. More importantly in the branding perspective, Apache kept its focus on the Racing DNA which forms that backbone of its promotions. The brand took a giant leap when it entered the 250-350 cc segment in 2017 with its RR 310. The tie-up with BMW helped with a refresh on the brand's pitching as a performance-oriented bike. 

In my personal opinion, one of the factors that inhibited the brand's large scale user adoption was the style. The brand had a particular stance which was either liked or hated. With the brand offering no variety in styling, the brand limited its sales to hard-core fans. In the new avatar, Apache comes with different variants, the brand began to appeal to a broader set of consumers. In a way, Apache had missed the bus in the premium performance bikes but the slew of launches in the recent years are helping Apache to break into the performance segment.