New Delhi – Bhupendrasingh rammed into a fuel tank inside a Harley-Davidson showroom. A row of motorcycles flashing in the midday sun; One metallic red, the other black matte finish and a slightly lerr variant in blue.
Motorcycles were not for sale, but for repairs. The front door of the dealership was locked. Harley Davidson, a proud American company, leaves India after more than a decade in search of a huge but ultimately frustrating place to do business, due to poor sales.
Service Representative Shri Singh said, “Now all this is over. “There are no bikes to sell now.”
The closure has hit India’s ambitions to lure manufacturers, named after China’s success in the ‘Make in India’ campaign. It has reversed Harley-Davidson’s efforts to increase its popularity abroad. And that’s a small but dedicated group of Harley devotees, wondering how they’ll keep their precious rides shaking.
“It’s like losing someone in your family,” said Sandeep Bhardwaj, chief executive of the bus manufacturer, who spent more than 40 40,000 on his Fat Boy motorcycle. “We were mentally convinced that they were physically present and that they could help us with spare parts.”
Companies looking for the next boom are India, a country of billions of people, with an aspiring middle class. It is difficult to set up shop there. Roads and railways are inadequate in many areas. Land policies Flummox construction. India’s red tape is notorious.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with his “Make in India” campaign, pledged to reduce bureaucratic barriers, invest in infrastructure and take other steps for higher product manufacturing jobs and design work.
Even before the outbreak, the campaign was disappointing. Production contributes as little to India’s economic output as it did a decade ago. The government has struggled to create ecosystems for manufacturers, including infrastructure and industrial parks. Small suppliers who can help grow meat out of the supply chain are having a hard time getting credit.
CP Chandrasekhar, an economist and former professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, said, “Harley has come to produce for your market. “If they’re not happy, they’ll just stand up and walk.”
A Commerce Ministry spokesperson in New Delhi said the government was trying to reduce red tape for companies.
Despite the difficulties, any foreign manufacturer interested in India will have to look to set up shop here. The country has some of the biggest trade barriers in the world. President Trump has repeatedly cited duties on Harley-Davidson bikes in his trade talks with New Delhi.
India had reduced the tariff on Harley motorcycles from 75 per cent to 50 per cent in 2018. Still, the government levies an additional 31 percent tax on two-wheelers, one of the highest in the world.
Harley-Davidson decided to put the bike together inside the country. The Milwaukee-based company sent knockdown kits – parts packages – to its factory outside New Delhi for low-powered models such as the Stroke 750. Signature, high-end motorcycles were still shipped from the United States.
But sales plummeted after the initial boom and India suffered an operational executive turnover. Harley-Davidson sold a total of 2,470 bikes in India in the 12 months ended March, nearly half the number it reached five years ago, according to the non-profit Society of Indian Fomomobile Manufacturers, which represents tomato manufacturers.
The company’s motorcycles were also out of reach of many people. Harley’s top model is over 88,000 after taxes and licensing fees. According to the World Bank, India’s average annual income is 411 times.
The people of India prefer overly cheap, light bikes that are easy to maneuver on the country’s reckless, traffic-ridden roads. One of the largest manufacturers of motorcycles and scooters in the country, Hero MotoCorp’s most expensive bikes cost around Rs. Is 1,500.
The Harley-Davidson move in India is part of a broader restructuring. Harley’s average customer is rapidly aging. Its sales have remained stable and profits have declined.
Under its new president and chief executive, Jochen Zitz, the company is reducing dealerships, limiting a few products and allowing bikes to be displayed as an exclusive luxury item.
“It’s always been a difficult proposal because customers could be shutting down,” said Stephen Brown, Chicago-based senior director of credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings. “It’s a delicate balance that they’re running right now.”
Harley’s name will disappear completely from India. The company said last month that it had struck a deal with Hero to “sell and service” its motorcycles, a local company that said it could “develop and sell” motorcycles under the Harley brand. With its own factory closed, the fate of India’s most popular Harley bike, the Street 750, is unclear. Harley is also laying off about 70 workers.
Harley enthusiasts in India are wondering what this means for them.
In 2014, longtime Harley rider Gaurav Gulati was lured into opening a dealership in New Delhi by the company’s managing director in India.
Mr. Gulati wanted to grow up. It made the city a success for an ideal location and settled on an abandoned warehouse that would turn it into a chic Harley store with cafes, workshops, garages, lacrosse curves and showers for riders. By the time their outlet opened two years later, two of the company’s bosses had arrived in India.
Mr Gulati is one of 33 dealers who said they have invested about 27 27 million in their dealership, some of which expanded recently in February. He is sitting on an investment of ૨ 1.5 million, which he got from his savings and partly from banks. He still pays about 20,000 in monthly rent.
He said neither Harley nor his new India ally Hero MotoCorp could contact Mr. Gulati to continue the deadline for his dealership. Its dealership contract expires at the end of the year.
“I’m ruined,” said Mr Gulati as he glanced at the store’s exterior wall, which he had decorated with old-fashioned red bricks and graffiti. “It simply came to our notice then. Where did I put my faith and trust? What am I going to do? “
Despite all this, some of Harley’s dead fans in India are not giving up.
Last morning, real estate developer Pritam Thakur and other members of his Harley Club took bikes for a weekend ride. They rode in full gear wearing American flag bandanas, dog tights and custom-made jackets.
“It’s not about the machine,” said Mr. Thakur, a Dell buyer at 5050’s popular Street 5050. It’s the whole community, the bond that makes it special. “
Four years ago, Mr. Thakur reached Kanyakumari, the southernmost coast of India, from Kashmir, a journey of more than 1,700 miles.
In the midst of the ride, he ran out of cash after Modi announced a sudden ban on high denomination Indian banknotes and made national efforts to curb corruption and get more Indians to use digital currency. A friend of Harley’s went from Mumbai to the southern city of Chennai to deliver his cash.
That comrade, “A feeling you can’t describe in words,” Mr Thakur said.
It’s not clear if he can continue with his passion. Indian riders and dealers will have to find sources for critical machinery: batteries, accelerator cables, silencers.
Referring to the Indian way of finding cheap solutions to big problems, Mr. Thakur said, “There is no juggling in this case.”
Harley, he said, “should be here.”
Vindu Goyal contributed to the reporting.
