Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India outsold Hero MotoCorp at retail for a fourth straight month in October, and the margin is widening. Honda registered 6,37,630 units against Hero’s 5,98,433, a gap of 39,197 vehicles, according to retail data from the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA). Hero still leads the calendar year by roughly 89,000 units on the VAHAN dashboard, but that cushion stood at 647,000 units at the end of 2025.
The monthly arithmetic shows how fast the cushion is being spent. Honda’s lead over Hero was 29,025 units in July, 33,346 in August, 34,509 in September and 39,197 in October. Honda had taken the top spot only in isolated months before this run, in September 2022, September 2024 and July 2025; the 2011 break-up of the Hero Honda venture had left Hero as the market’s default leader for a decade.
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Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India lifted its market share to 27.47 per cent from 26.26 per cent a year earlier, while Hero’s fell to 25.78 per cent from 31.07 per cent. That 5.29 percentage point slide is the steepest among the seven large manufacturers, and Hero alone accounted for about 44.5 per cent of the industry’s entire year-on-year decline in registrations.
The industry total of 23,21,419 units was down 9,18,530 vehicles, a fall of 28.35 per cent, because both Navratri and Diwali fell inside October last year and the GST 2.0 rate cuts of 22 September 2025 had pushed pent-up demand into that base. Hero chief executive Harshavardhan Chitale told an earnings call that the company measures a 100-day festive window instead, over which it has grown 24 per cent, and that it has not seen share erosion on that measure.
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Strip Out The Calendar And The Trend Still Runs One Way
Independent data points the same direction. Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst at Envirocatalysts, said Honda’s registrations grew 25 per cent between January and September against Hero’s 18 per cent, cutting Hero’s lead to 180,000 units. His reading is that Hero is not losing its brand so much as its core buyer: rural customers in the entry 100cc segment have been squeezed by a weak monsoon, costlier fuel and rural inflation, while salaried buyers in cities and in the South and West trade up to scooters and 125cc motorcycles, the two segments where Honda is strongest.
The rest of the table shows why. TVS Motor registered 4,58,303 units, down 19.9 per cent but well ahead of the market, and lifted its share to 19.74 per cent from 17.67 per cent, the biggest gain of any large maker, narrowing its gap with Hero to 1,40,130 units. Bajaj Auto fell 37.5 per cent to 2,09,634 units and slipped below 10 per cent share. Royal Enfield, Suzuki and Yamaha all lost volume but gained share. Among electric two-wheelers, Ather rose 5.2 per cent to 31,833 units and Ola Electric fell 26.4 per cent to 12,098.
Hero’s Profit Grew, But Not From Two-Wheelers Alone
Hero’s accounts do not yet read like a company in retreat. Consolidated revenue for the September quarter was Rs 14,971 crore, up 23 per cent, and consolidated net profit Rs 1,861 crore, up 41 per cent. On a standalone basis revenue was Rs 14,687 crore and profit Rs 1,456 crore, a rise of 4.6 per cent. The difference between the two sets is what subsidiaries and associates added, so the headline jump is not a clean measure of the two-wheeler business.
What To Watch In November
November settles the argument. Diwali falls on 8 November this year, so the festive demand that sat in October 2025 shifts into this month and the year-on-year comparison should normalise for both companies. The arithmetic is simple: Hero’s cushion is about 89,000 units and Honda has been taking 30,000 to 39,000 units a month out of it since July. Two more months at October’s rate would erase the lead before the calendar closes.
The Desk View
This is a mix problem dressed up as a festive-calendar problem. Honda’s gains sit in scooters and 125cc motorcycles, exactly where urban and semi-urban buyers are trading up, while Hero’s franchise is anchored in the 100cc commuter market that rural demand has to support. Hero’s 24 per cent festive growth is real and its balance sheet allows it to defend share with discounts, but discounting a shrinking segment does not reverse a mix shift, and the margin cost would land on Hero first. The number that matters by January is not the monthly gap but whether Hero’s entry-level volumes come back with rural demand.
