Study on consumer buying behavior of

Honda CB Unicorn

Submitted by

Hari.L.Krishna

S2 MBA

Introduction• The Honda Unicorn is a motorcycle developed by Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India

(HMSI) and introduced in 2005. It was the first motorcycle in India to feature a mono-shock. The motorcycle was built and designed by the Honda R&D team based in Osaka, Japan. It was internally called the CBF150M. The engine was taken from CRF150F post 2005 engine. The previous version of CRF150F was the old CBZ classic. The design of the bike was done keeping in mind Indian road conditions. Many new features were incorporated, including a two-way air jacket, diamond frame, and an engine producing a torque of 12.8 Nm at a relatively low 5500 RPM for better fuel economy. The first version of the bike featured spoke wheels and kick start only.

• Even though the brand became popular the company released another product named CB dazzler 150cc.But it was a huge flop, because the company didn’t analyze the consumer behavior and in such a manner that Honda had to apply some de-marketing techniques. The booking for Honda Unicorn proliferated in a daily basis and the Dazzler became the inventory.

• The study aims to find why customers are attracted to the Honda products and the 150cc bike lovers are sticking to CB Unicorn than Dazzler. In general “Study on consumer buying behavior of Honda CB Unicorn”.

Review of Literature • Bikes or two wheelers in India cater to various needs of the consumers. With the

choice of the Indians improving from bicycles to two wheelers, the Indian two-wheeler market has seen a significant growth over the years. Now owing a bike has become a must for most Indians. Even if people own a car they prefer to have a bike as it is very economical and fuel efficient.

• With the growth in the economy the demand for two wheelers is increasing over the years. It is one of the most dynamic industries today and with the increasing competition companies are bringing in new products with sophisticated technologies and innovative features to capture a major pie of the Indian market and it‘s the consumer who is benefited from it..

• With the availability of reduced consumer loans and high disposable income the Indian two-wheeler industry has perceived an exceptional growth over the past few years thereby making India the second largest market for two wheelers in the world only after China.

• Consumer behaviour is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy a product. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioural variables in an attempt to understand people's wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general.

Statement of the Problem:• Honda did several changes to their flagship product

Unicorn. They modified the bike and it became a challenge to the other 150cc bikes in India. But after the victory of this bike Honda also launched another 150cc bike in that category, which is Honda CB Dazzler. But the main problem arose here. Customers rejected that bike and they stuck to the Unicorn. Dazzler became a flop. So Honda re-thought to pull dazzler from the market and produce more Unicorn. But the unexpected disaster which caused by the Tsunami affected the production of the Unicorn which made a delay in delivering the product to customers. At this time some of the other companies made their profit high. Namely Mahindra, Hero, Yamaha and Bajaj, they sold lots of bike in this time. But when unicorn re-launched as Honda CB Unicorn, again the customers slanted to this bike. So study is intended to seek consumer behavior on Unicorn and the effects of this on other bike companies and the other products of Honda itself.

Objectives:

• To find why consumers are stick to Honda Unicorn than other bikes in that category.

• How the consumer preference towards Unicorn affects Honda CB Dazzler.

• How the pricing and marketing enrich the selling of Unicorn.• What are the reasons behind the failure of CB Dazzler.

Methodology:• Nature of Data: Primary Data & Secondary Data • Target Audience: Consumers of Unicorn and other bikes belong to

same category in Trivandrum.• Area of Study: Dealers of Honda namely Marikar Honda, EVM

Honda• Data Collection & Proposed Tools: Structured Questionnaire,

Interviews and Discussions, Perceptual Mapping.• Research Design: Descriptive ResearchResearch design • A research design is the detailed blue print used to guide a research

study towards its objectives. It helps to collect, measure and analysis of data.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

Honda CB Unicorn

Pilot Study:

The initial questionnaire would be administered to an appropriate small portion of the universe and an exploratory study would be conducted. The Technique used would be survey and direct interview of the consumers of Honda Unicorn and other 150cc bikes. Thus after obtaining an initial insight into the subject, an in-depth study would be conducted through Structured Questionnaire which will provide a much more reliable and accurate findings after

the Analysis and Interpretation.

• Findings:• Customers are looking forward for a bike which will give mileage as well as moderate power. The

customers attracted to Honda because of their brand value which was created by Honda Unicorn. The First Honda two wheeler in India was Unicorn and it became a massive hit of the year. Honda changed some features of the bike and released their second edition which also was sold at a higher rate.

• Honda then unveiled their sporty look unicorn in the year 2007 with monoshock and alloy wheels. They targeted the Youth .Then there was a competition in the market between pulsar and Unicorn.

• Bajaj Pulsar was more stylish than the Unicorn and Youth attracted to Pulsar than Unicorn. But gradually customer’s preference turned towards Unicorn because of its durability and refinement.

• Honda got a huge profit from Unicorn as well as from Honda active which was launched as a scooter. The massive victory of Unicorn forced Honda to launch another bike named Honda Dazzler of 150 cc.

• But Dazzler was a huge flop the main reasons behind that were• 1. The bike looks like Honda’s another 125 model bike,Honda CB twister• 2. The unicorn was classic in look and dazzler look like a sporty bike which is commonly used for

off road driving.• 3. The price of the bike is more than unicorn but it offers same features like Unicorn.• 4. The height of the bike is less than unicorn.• 5. The failure of marketing strategy.• During the tsunami disaster, Honda faced a huge problem in production of bikes. Then they

decided to sell dazzler which was became inventory at that time. So they deliberately made a delay in the delivery of Unicorn and tried to sell Dazzler.

• But customers are stuck to Unicorn and they totally rejected the dazzler.

• Bibliography:

• 1. Top gear Magazine edition Oct 2010, April 2011.• 2. Fast track Magazine edition December 2011.• 3. Thompson, “Crafting And Executing Strategy”

• Electronic articles:• 1. www.automobileindia• 2. www.bestlife.org• 3. www.bikeadvice.in• 4. www.honda2wheelersindia.com• 5. www.topgear.com

Thank You