Locally made motorcycles are getting popular as they are competing with the well-known foreign automobile brands, sources said.
Currently two Bangladeshi companies are manufacturing motorcycles and some are in the pipeline with the local companies' market share scaling up by more than 15 per cent every year.
According to a source involved with the manufacturing, against the annual demand for 0.2 million units, at least two local companies are meeting 20 per cent of the demand.
He said main causes of the increase in the market share were their better quality, after-sale services and lower prices than many of the foreign brands.
Hafizur Rahman Khan, chairman of the Runner Group (RG), said people were purchasing quality brand motorcycles from local manufacturers and they were paying comparatively less.
He said local brands were getting popular creating an avenue for automobile export from the country.
Mr. Khan expressed the hope that within few years the whole motorcycle market would be occupied by local brands.
The RG chairman said: "Our own brand is Dayang Runner and it can compete with any existing foreign brand available in the local market."
He said the local manufacturing bases had also led to emergence of a good number of vendors supplying different parts to the manufacturing units.
According to a marketing officer in Walton Group, the local brands' market share was more than twenty per cent now and it happened just only in three years' time.
He said, "We are already in the export market and our Walton brand is getting popularity in the international market."
Currently the major motorcycle market share is grabbed by Indian, Japanese and other companies.
The different foreign brand motorcycles are just assembled here locally before being marketed by their distributing companies.
The RG chairman, also an office bearer of Bangladesh Automobiles Assemblers and Manufacturers Association (BAAMA) said: "We are assembling engines now and we hope to manufacture it locally shortly."
According to market sources, several big business conglomerates are also planning to invest in manufacturing motorcycles.
The sources said the demand for all types of motorcycles was increasing among the people every year and there was still an enough scope to grab more market share. For these reasons local investors would need to improve quality to survive the competition and offer products at competitive prices.
A group chief executive officer said: "We have a plan to invest in automobile manufacturing industry and initially we want to start with motorcycles."
He said the market opportunity was there and as per "our study it is possible to grab the whole motorcycle market with local products."
He said local investors already invested their money in manufacturing motorcycle and the results were positive in both local and foreign markets.
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