By Aman Shah
MUMBAI, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Harley-Davidson Inc, battling upstart competitors in its traditional markets, says it is betting on India's young and affluent urbanites to help establish a "leisure riding" culture there and boost sales of its first new bike in over a decade.
With Lynyrd Skynyrd and Deep Purple playing in the background, the iconic United States motorcycle company on Thursday launched three new bikes in India, a country more associated with pot holes and traffic snarl-ups than open roads.
"I think there's a lot of people (in India) who are enthusiastic, who are riders at heart, and are now seeing an opportunity to enter into this lifestyle. It is much more accessible," India Managing Director Anoop Prakash told Reuters on the sidelines.
The bikes launched included the company's costliest offering in India to date, a limited edition CVO Limited, priced at 4.9 million rupees (almost $80,000). That is the equivalent of a BMW 5 Series sedan or almost seven decades of pay for many families in country where average income is closer to $1,200 a year.
But Prakash, a former U.S. Marine, said he was confident the brand -- which Harley nourishes in India with rock music festivals and bike rallies -- would prove attractive to aspirational young Indians, for whom a motorcycle is more than simply the cheapest form of motorised transport.
India is the world's largest motorcycle market after China, but the roads are packed with cheaper models. Makers of high-end motorcycles, from Ducati to Yamaha Motor, are only just breaking into the market.
"We are reaching out to a lot of younger riders," Prakash said.
Harley Davidson has suffered recalls that tarnished the roll-out of the "Street," its first entirely new bike in more than a decade and its first Harley-badged lightweight motorcycle since the 1970s.
But in India, its stripped-down 'Street' series launched earlier this year at $7,000 has helped it more than double sales in the six months through September, according to data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
"We're looking at the establishment of a long-term leisure riding culture and doing it the Harley-Davidson way," he said.
Harley, which entered India five years ago, has since set up its own assembly line in the country. Earlier this year it set up its first manufacturing facility outside its parent market in northern India.
(Reporting by Aman Shah in Mumbai; Editing by Clara Ferreira Marques)