For many riders, it can be easy to think the motorcycle world revolves around cruisers, ADV bikes, and whatever just dropped at EICMA. Sales numbers feel abstract. A “good year” is a few hundred thousand bikes, and anything under 500cc still gets framed as a "beginner bike." It’s a comfy bubble. And it's been the norm for decades in the US.
But for someone like me who was born and raised in Southeast Asia, where small bikes rule the streets, that bubble is very different. And if we zoom out one more level and look at India, the whole global picture snaps into focus.
Autocar India recently reported that India crossed 2 crore (with crore equating ten million) two-wheeler registrations in 2025. That translates to more than 20 million bikes and scooters in a single year.
Let that sit for a second.
That’s not a record-breaking spike or a post-pandemic sugar high. That’s a mature market growing seven percent year on year. To put it bluntly, India sells more two-wheelers in about ten days than the US sells in a full year. And no, that’s not hyperbole.
From the outside looking in, especially from Southeast Asia, this isn’t just a fun trivia stat. It explains why so many motorcycle folks from the US and Europe are suddenly “discovering” are actually so good. It explains why entry-level bikes keep getting better without getting much more expensive. It explains why manufacturers are obsessed with 300cc to 450cc platforms even when bigger engines have been the status quo for literal decades.
The big headline from India’s 2025 numbers isn’t just volume. It’s what’s driving that volume. Growth wasn’t led by superbikes or aspirational toys. It was scooters, commuters, and mid-displacement machines under 350cc. A tax change called GST 2.0 dropped the tax rate on bikes and scooters up to 350cc from 28 percent to 18 percent. Overnight, hundreds of thousands of buyers suddenly had more purchasing power for small-displacement two-wheelers. When policy meets scale like that, manufacturers don’t just react locally. They redesign their entire global playbook around platforms that can rake in volumes both in and outside of India.
From my perspective, this is all familiar territory. Here in the Philippines, we’ve long benefited from bikes that were developed for massive markets elsewhere and then refined for our roads. The difference now is that the same thing is happening to the US and Europe, whether folks there already realize it or not.
Take scooters, for example. In the US, scooters still fight an image problem. In India, they’re mainstream and growing fast. That forces brands like TVS Motor Company and Suzuki to obsess over efficiency, emissions, ride quality, and durability at insane volumes. Once those problems are solved for millions of units, exporting that polish to other markets becomes easy. That’s why modern scooters everywhere suddenly feel less cheap and more complete.
Then there’s Royal Enfield. Royal Enfield crossing a million units a year is wild if you grew up thinking of the brand as a niche retro curiosity. In India, it’s a major player with real scale. That scale is exactly why the brand can afford to design bikes like the 650 twins and Himalayan and sell them globally at prices that make Western manufacturers sweat. From the outside, it looks like clever branding. From the inside, it’s really all just math.
Another interesting detail in Autocar’s reporting is the gap between factory dispatches and actual registrations. Registrations outpaced dispatches by a noticeable margin. That suggests real demand, not dealer stockpiling. It also suggests manufacturers are being cautious. When demand is strong, but factories hold back, it usually means new platforms are coming. And trust me, as I've witnessed firsthand on my trip to India last year, those platforms won’t be India only. They’re being designed to pass emissions rules in Europe, the US, and beyond from day one.
This is where the regional bubble really starts to crack. A lot of riders often ask why manufacturers keep pushing small-displacement bikes that “don’t sell.” The answer is simple. They sell incredibly well elsewhere. And when a platform sells in the millions, markets like the US don’t need to carry the financial burden. They just gets to enjoy the results.
From where I sit in the Philippines, the US market looks like it’s slowly rediscovering what much of the world never forgot. Motorcycles don’t need to be massive to be meaningful. They don’t need four-figure curb weights or triple-digit horsepower to be relevant. When India shifts toward better-equipped 125cc, 200cc, and 350cc machines, the knock-on effect is better bikes everywhere else.
The fun part about all this is realizing how interconnected things really are. A tax tweak in India, a good monsoon season, or strong rural demand can shape the bikes that show up at dealerships near you and me two or three years later. Riders in the US might night have the slightest idea about India and the rest of Asia's motorcycle market, but they’re riding the downstream effects every time they throw a leg over a modern “entry level” bike that rides way better than its price tag suggests.
Source: AutoCar India
