India’s scooter market registered record sales of 8.11 million units in FY2026, while the top two players – Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) and TVS Motor Company – are engaged in a heated battle. HMSI remains unassailable as the longstanding segment leader, but TVS’s advance, particularly over the past three fiscal years, highlights shifting market dynamics.
While Honda will likely remain the market leader in the coming times, its share has declined considerably over the years. A decade ago, in FY2017, HMSI had a 57 percent market share, accounting for 3.18 million scooters of the 5.60 million units sold in India that fiscal.
Fast forward to FY2026, Honda’s share of the much larger scooter market, which clocked a record 8.11 million units, fell to 39 percent. The company dispatched 3.16 million units comprising 28,45,052 Activas (110cc/125cc), 3,13,924 Dios (110cc/125cc), along with 2,773 QC1 and 318 Activa e: e-scooters. HMSI, which entered the EV market in early 2025, has not had much success with these two zero-emission models and, until end-May 2026, dispatched 6,505 units of the Activa-e and QC1 and retailed 5,439 units.
As the data shown above reveals, HMSI maintained a market share of over 55 percent from FY2017 to FY2020. The pandemic-impacted FY2021 and FY2022 – when all-India scooter sales fell 11 percent year-on-year (YoY) to their lowest level of 4 million units in a decade – saw Honda’s share drop below the 50 percent mark for the first time in FY2022. Since then, there has been a consistent decline in HMSI’s share, as per the wholesale numbers from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). In the first two months of FY2027, the company controlled 35 percent of the market with 5,02,190 units (up 16 percent YoY).
In the same 10-year period under review, the No. 2 player, TVS Motor, has gradually increased its volumes but is still some distance away from challenging Honda’s #1 position. TVS currently has the petrol-powered Jupiter, Ntorq and Zest and the electric iQube and Orbiter in its scooter portfolio. A close look at data reveals that Honda’s lead over TVS has reduced from a massive 2.36 million units in FY2017 to 8,59,366 units in FY2026. Nevertheless, the gap is still sizeable.
The numbers also reveal that while Honda’s scooter market share has tapered from FY2017 to FY2026, TVS’s share has jumped from over 14 percent to 28.43 percent. The Jupiter and Ntorq have been the key drivers of this growth, but TVS’s fortunes received a booster shot with entry into e-scooters. Between FY2021 and April-May 2026, TVS dispatched over a million units (combined) of iQube and Orbiter. These two EVs account for around 10 percent of TVS’s scooter sales over the past decade.
The accelerated growth of TVS, particularly between FY2024, when it sold 1.4 million scooters, and FY2026, when it recorded 2.30 million units, is the result of strong demand for both its ICE and electric models.
In FY2026, TVS sold an additional 4,89,598 units, which helped increase its scooter market share to over 28 percent from 26.45 percent in FY2025. While the three petrol-engined scooters clocked 19,35,200 units, up 26 percent YoY, the two e-scooters (3,67,501 units) posted 35 percent YoY growth (FY2025: 2,73,063 iQubes). With this, EVs accounted for 16 percent of the company’s scooter sales, up from 15 percent in FY2025. Moreover, last fiscal year, TVS became the new e-two-wheeler (e2W) market leader with a 24 percent retail share, unseating Ola Electric.
More recently, the Chennai-based manufacturer became the second e2W OEM in India (the first being Ola) to sell 1 million units – news first reported by our sister publication, Autocar Professional.
As the TVS e2W sales data table shown above depicts, of the cumulative 10,024,451 scooters clocked between January 2020 and May 2026, 7.22 million units, or 72 percent, were sold since April 2024, including a record 3,67,501 units in FY2026. This is reflected in the growing contribution of e-scooters to TVS’s overall scooter sales. From a minuscule 0.11 percent in FY2021, the share of EVs has touched 16 percent in FY2026 and, in the first two months of FY2027, it rose to over 19 percent, so every fifth TVS scooter sold in the domestic market is a zero-emission model.
Of the 8.11 million scooters sold in FY2026, Honda and TVS together commanded a 67 percent share. Given the strong momentum in the current fiscal, FY2027 could likely see the 9-million milestone being breached for the first time.
Vishal Venugopal
Ved Janve
Azaman Chothia
