One automotive manufacturer who knows what it takes and means to play in the rarefied millionaires club has to be Hero Honda.

The world's largest motorcycle maker is well on song to hit the 4.5 million units mark for this fiscal, bettering its own projected target of four million units for the fiscal well before the year was out! In fact with sales of 3, 82, 096 units in February, the firm has already registered a cumulative sales record of 41,85,492 units to date. If it continues to twist the throttle at this rate and keep it pinned open, I for sure can't rule out the fact that it would set a record beyond the wildest expectations of its partner Honda or anyone else in the Indian automotive sphere.

What is of prime significance is the fact that the firm has kept solid faith and steadfast focus at the bottom end of the pyramid. Yes the bottom end of the pyramid is what Hero Honda has all to itself and it has worked to service this basic commuter mantra for the masses in the most obsessed manner among any Indian motorcycle maker. In fact I want to draw one clear inference and it hasn't got to do anything even with motorcycles.

Let me explain. When Hero Honda got going in the mid-1980s, scooters dominated proceedings and Bajaj Auto was king with the Chetak / Super duo. By the late 1990s these scooters were long in the tooth and Bajaj Auto didn't see their end coming. Or if it did, it didn't take corrective action adequately to offset their impending demise. Of course today Bajaj Auto is on a strong course as a motorcycle maker but Hero Honda now makes and sells its Pleasure scooter to the tune of 20,000 units a month, which translates into 2,40,000 scooters a year. This surely places Bajaj Auto in a piquant sight given that this erstwhile scooter maker has all but abdicated this category and it is only Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India which makes more scooters than Hero Honda!