Just like the 125 Duke and the forthcoming 350 Duke, KTM 200 Duke has been designed and built by the Austrian manufacturer - in cooperation with Indian automotive giant and stakeholder Bajaj - with the flourishing Asian markets in mind. Versatile motorcycles with small and mid size engines turned out to be pretty popular in countries like India and China, and this particular segment has been constantly on the rise in the past few years, and this is a trend that the company wants to exploit in full.

However, there’s a particular feature of the model that seems to worry the Indian customers: the under belly exhaust. The point is that daily commuting in India is something pretty different from what we Europeans would associate to that definition: it might imply riding on heavily dirty and/or dusty roads, crossing the woods, and even wading some water course. This last thing is actually what is worrying the Indians right now: they are afraid that the bike might just get stranded by the water flowing inside the exhaust and leave them in the middle of a stream.

With the Monsoon season just around the corner - which makes flooding in certain Indian regions more than just likely, it is basically a given - KTM just had to address this issue in order to avoid undermining the predictable success of the 200 Duke in those lands. For this reason, the manufacturer has just released a two-minute long video featuring a specific few tests that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the baby Duke can actually swim and all: you could even park it in a river, have a drink, come back half an hour later, turn they key and off you go. Point proven, and we guess the news will soon reach about a billion people.

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Slowly but steadily, Indian automotive giant Bajaj Auto keeps on building up its stake in Austrian manufacturer KTM and, following the recent acquisition of another 6.3%, it is now a little over the 47% mark, reinforcing its position as second shareholder within the company. Still holding the top spot in KTM’s food chain is the homegrown pair Stefan Pierer (CEO) and Rudolf Knuenz (President), whose combined quotas make for a little more than 51%.

Bajaj Auto main man Rajiv Bajaj has already denied any interest in becoming the majority shareholder in KTM, but not many people in the financial business seem to believe that. The Asian company got into KTM’s capital in 2007 with a starting 14.5% quota, a move that was supposed to help KTM to break through the Indian market as well as paving the way for a new KTM production plant in India. The first outcome of the partnership was the KTM 125 Duke, which turned out to be an outstanding success.

In 2011, 1 out of 8 bikes sold by KTM were built by Bajaj, but the plan is to have this percentage boosted to 50% by 2015. In 2012 KTM aims at selling between 25,000 and 30,000 in India alone, projecting to hit the 200,000 unit sold target by 2015. Thanks to Bajaj involvement in the company, KTM managed to be the best selling motorcycle manufacturer in Europe in the first two months of the current year, scoring 8,400 sales against the 8.250-8.300 units sold by BMW.

via | The Economic Times

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After the lovely KTM concepts seen at last year’s EICMA show, the 2010 EICMA will see those models, or something similar, head to production in a joint venture with Bajaj, which owns a 30 percent stake in the Austrian company. The bikes will be built as entry level models as Bajaj hopes to capitalise on the European know-how at lower prices in emerging markets. Brazil will be the first market to get lucky on the new KTM street bikes.

Hopefully the move will prove a good one to get lower production cost bikes to market, while still keeping KTM quality. The Austrian brand could get a nice boost in emerging markets from this initiative, with its products appearing in South America and Asia. A statement from the company’s financial report reads:

In addition to the already entered KTM markets, new market opportunities in emerging markets come along with the serial production of entry-level street motorcycles (125cc to 350cc), which will be launched in late fall 2010 in cooperation with Bajaj Auto Ltd. The fist step will be Brazil, where the market offensive is already in the preparation stage.

The bikes are likely to be lightweight, four-stroke options taking on some of the elements of the concepts that KTM presented last year. The street-cred, funky urban appeal of KTM, as well as its offroad qualifications, should ensure the success of its brand but we’re with Wes Siler on this one - hopefully they won’t be just cheap bikes with an orange paint job.

Source | HFL

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