Bajaj Auto has announced that the company will no more operate in the scooter segment, which has been its iconic product over a long period of time. The company had stopped manufacturing the Chetak, which had been the world's largest selling scooter, almost three years ago. Moreover it has planned to stop production of its non-starter Kristal series by end of the current fiscal.

Bajaj Auto has informed that now onwards, the company will only focus on the motorcycles market as scooter is no longer the symbol of the Indian middle class. Now they have shifted to Motorcycles due to higher fuel efficiency and better styling.

The MD and CEO of Future Brands and a marketing and advertising expert, MR. Santosh Desai said, "This is a definite watershed moment, because it's almost like detaching ourselves from what constitutes middle class India, and the set of values that constituted middle class India."

Getting delivery of a Chetak scooter used to command waiting periods of years, ten years back. Rajeev Bajaj's father and Bajaj Auto chairman, Mr. Rahul Bajaj once dared the government to arrest him for exceeding government permitted production limits.

Honda Motors, Hero-Honda's India partner, has entered the scooter segment with its Activa line of advanced scooters. It has been selling more than 6 lakh scooters per year.

Bajaj scooters slumped in the market when Kristal sales dropped by 57% to 3,356 from 7,876 scooters in the first eight months of this fiscal year, even at the time when the domestic scooter markets witnessed up-surged by15% to 8.91 lakh units.

Regarding the issue, Mr. Rajeev Bajaj said, "Currently, we are making our Kristal only for exports, which we don't think is viable. So, we plan to exit the scooter business by the end of this financial year."