As the competition in the cruiser bike segment gets tougher by the day, Bajaj, the Pune-based two-wheeler maker seems to be keeping close tabs on the Royal Enfield. It goes without saying that the new Dominar 400 is Bajaj's direct pitch in this segment, which has long been dominated by the Chennai-based niche bike maker's Royal Enfield.
But now comes a new advertisement by Bajaj, through which the company clearly indicates that Royal Enfield is the rival of the new Dominar 400. The new ad takes a potshot at Royal Enfield and the riders nail it with the punch line in Hindi, "Haathi Mat Paalo" (loosely translated meaning don't foster an elephant). The battle lines seem to have been drawn.
The new advertisement of the Dominar 400 shows the hipsters, typically used to show the Bullet riders on 'elephants' gearing up for a ride with the Bullet thump as the background score. As the pack of elephants make their way through corners and knolls struggling with riders on top, the Dominar 400 makes its 'powerful' entry, weaving through the pack with the punch line ''Haathi Mat Paalo".
Even though the Bajaj Dominar 400 and Royal Enfield cater to the same segment, both companies have unique design approaches that are poles apart. The Dominar 400 is a sports cruiser highlighted with low-slung stance, sculpted body panels, fat rear tyre and LED head lamps. On the other hand, Royal Enfield models have a retro-styling with spoke wheels, minimum fairing and most notable thumping exhaust note.
Bajaj Dominar 400, which was launched in the country in December 2016, had shown good numbers of over 3,000 units in its initial months in the market before it went down in April to 2,500. The Dominar 400 posted less than 1,000 units in June 2017. Royal Enfield with over 80 percent of market shares, sells over 50,000 units monthly.
Will Royal Enfield respond to the challenge? If it does, it would be an interesting battle to watch out for.
