7 Hero Bikes discontinued including Karizma R

Hero MotoCorp has been on a cutting spree axing the slow selling models. The country’s largest 2-wheeler manufacturer recently axed 3 of its models Splendor iSmart, Splendor Pro Classic and the HF Dawn from its line-up.

There were rumours that Hero would be discontinuing some more models after the discontinuation of these 3 bikes and the rumour turned out to be true. Hero has axed 7 more models from its line-up. The company has not given any official communication but has removed the respective models from its official website.

Hero has axed the Karizma R, Xtreme, Hunk, Old Glamour Fi, Ignitor, Passion X Pro and the Passion Pro TR owing to low sales. The current line-up of Hero too has very few models that are doing well on the numbers front.

Among the scooters, Duet and the Maestro are doing well, while the Pleasure is facing the heat from a host of its competitors. The Pleasure being a female-focused scooter rivals the Yamaha Fascino, Honda Activa i and TVS Scooty Zest.

Among the 13 motorcycles from its current line-up, only the Splendor, HF Deluxe, Glamour and Passion are doing well. The rest still continue to face stiff competition. The current trend in the Indian markets being scooterisation and premiumisation, Hero is still missing out on the premiumisation front.

Apart from the Karizma ZMR, Hero does not have any other premium motorcycle in its portfolio. Its rivals like Bajaj Auto have already started cashing in on the premiumisation, while TVS is all geared up to launch a premium motorcycle, the Apache RR 310S this July.

While Hero has announced its intentions of going premium via the HX 250R and the Xtreme 200S, the firm isn’t getting them to the Indian markets anytime soon. The Xtreme 200S is expected sometime in the next year while we aren’t sure when exactly the HX 250R will make it to India.