Official: KTM SuperDuke 1290 not coming to India
The red hot side bar to the KTM 390 Duke commercial launch was the announcement that KTM would bring the SuperDuke 1290 to India. Forget the enthusiast, this is a big step for Bajaj and KTM in India. At the most superficial level, it means Bajaj and KTM have finally found the confidence in the Indian market to play the low-volume, high-margin fully imported motorcycle game. At a deeper level, it is a change of strategy â" Bajaj has maintained from the very beginning that they would approach the premium motorcycle business from the bottom up, allowing their product line to expand upwards while allowing customers to grow in stature, budget and displacement in sync. A SuperDuke suddenly means Bajaj has altered strategy and is now attacking the premium space from the top as well as the bottom.
2014 KTM 1290 SuperDuke
OVERDRIVE has now learnt that all this speculation is just not necessary. Bajaj officials confirmed to us moments ago that the SuperDuke news was reported out of context. The SuperDuke's international launch is scheduled for the end of this calendar year and the mention of the highly anticipated 185PS naked from KTM was merely to lay out the international plan for KTM rather than specific to India.
We further understand that there is no plan for bringing the SuperDuke to India at this time. KTM had earlier imported a few off-road bikes as well as a few RC8 Superbikes for display in their Indian showrooms and the SuperDuke isn't even at that stage for now.
Bajaj say they have a product plan and strategy in place and that does not include any CBUs at the moment. Consequently, the KTM SuperDuke 1290, contrary to what you have read in many, many places, is not coming to India any time soon as of now.
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