According to a report by Society of Indian Automobile Manufactures (SIAM), India has emerged as the biggest two-wheeler market in the world overtaking China to take the No 1 spot. According to the reports, India sold close to 17.7 million units in 2016 compared to the 16.8 million units sold by China for the financial year 2016-17.

In India, Honda unseated Bajaj Auto to become second largest bikes-maker for the time in April, and has also moved within striking distance to overtake Hero as the country's largest two-wheeler company.

Over the past few years, the Chinese two-wheeler market was on the decline for various reasons. The most evident was the rise in demand for cars in the country and high import cost on two-wheelers made it difficult for the bike-makers to cater to the segment. This resulted in the down-grade of the two-wheeler segment in the country.

Y.S. Guleria said, "Driven by a 34 per cent rise in overall volumes, we have become the No 2 motorcycle-maker in the country in April, unseating the incumbent by a wide margin (over 21,330 units). We sold 1,83,266 bikes in the month, up 22 per cent from 1,50,711 units we had sold a year ago."

As against this, Bajaj Auto saw its domestic sales plunge 19 per cent to 1,61,930 units in April. With this, the Japanese two-wheeler major leads the Pune-headquartered company by a wide margin of 21,336 units, while it has narrowed the gap it has with the market leader Hero MotoCorp to just 12,377 units.

Royal Enfield also posted its highest ever quarterly income from operations at Rs 1,888 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, a growth of 23.2 per cent over the corresponding period last year. During the fourth quarter of the last fiscal, Royal Enfield posted its best ever performance. It sold 1,78,345 motorcycles, posting a growth of 20.8 per cent over 1,47,618 motorcycles sold in the same period last year.

India has taken the No 1 position from China despite the negative impact of demonetisation and the BS-III vehicle ban, as the two-wheeler industry is said to have incurred a loss of Rs 600 crore.

The apex court on March 29 banned the sale and registration of BS-III category vehicles or those not compliant with Bharat Stage IV (BS IV) emission norms from April 1. The step was taken due to concerns on vehicular emission.

The BS norms are emission standards imposed on automobile manufacturers which specify the maximum permissible limits for pollutants in the exhaust fumes of automobiles.

"The total loss for the two-wheeler industry on account of the discounts offered during March 30-31, 2017 is estimated to be around Rs 600 crore, sizeable share of which would be borne by the OEMs," Senior Group Vice-President at ICRA Subrata Ray said in a report.

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