Business is booming for Hero as it plans UK market entry
Reportedly on the precipice of entering the UK market, India’s Hero MotorCorp is brimming with success.
India’s Hero MotorCorp is on a roll, announcing an almost 8-percent increase in year-on-year sales for September.
Despite the fact it may not be a familiar name to most Western riders, India-based Hero is HUGE within the motorcycling world. Primarily a maker of affordable, lower-capacity motorcycles and scooters (ie, less than 250cc), it dispatched 687,220 units last month.
That’s about five times the number of two-wheelers sold in the UK in the space of a year!
And it’s also a 7.88-percent increase from the 637,050 units that Hero sold in September 2024.
Amid its sales success in September, Hero also became the first Indian manufacturer to hit the 125 million two-wheeler mark, in terms of cumulative production.
Founded in 1984, the company previously had a long relationship with Honda before pushing forward with its own identity in the 2010s. Students of the long and winding story of Erik Buell will know that Hero owned a 49-percent share of EBR in 2016, with some critics suggesting that Hero’s tactics ultimately led to EBR’s bankruptcy.
EBR has since been reborn as the Buell Motorcycle Company and is no longer associated with Hero.
Somewhat related, Hero is also responsible for production of the India-only Harley-Davidson X440 - a bike that some have suggested could be the entry-level Sprint model that Harley-Davidson promised earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Hero’s sales seem set to increase even more in the not-too-distant future. We’ve heard scuttlebutt that the manufacturer is looking to enter the UK market as soon as this winter.
It’s uncertain exactly what sort of offerings Hero will bring to our shores, but it’s a good bet they’ll be affordable.
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Chris Cope is a fourth-generation journalist, originally from Texas. He has lived in the UK for roughly two decades and has been writing about motorcycles for most of that time. He has written for dozens of publications and websites in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.
