The United States of America is a market, which promotes big displacement motorcycles and bikes. For years, it has been dominated by the likes of Harley-Davidson, the BMW and the Ducati. However, in the last couple of years, the country has shown interest in some lesser displacement bikes, which has paved the path for KTM to export its bikes to the US. The Austrian manufacturer is trying its best to make USA its biggest market after Europe and Asia. Last year, KTM had launched Duke 690 successfully, which got a great response. The Austrian bike manufacturer is planning to go ahead with its Duke 390 and RC390 sometime soon.
When in India, RC390 and the Duke 390 are described as higher displacement motorcycles; the term used to refer these bikes in the US is ‘little motorcycle’. This clearly shows that the US market is ruled by ultra-high capacity motorcycles. However, KTM looks to make the most utilisation of the recent love of the US citizens for lesser displacement bikes. There are three factors, which are in favour of these low-capacity bikes; lower price, better usability and a higher performance. The Duke 390 will be tagged at 4999 USD while its fully-faired sibling, RC390 will carry a price tag of 5499 USD.
The small capacity bikes of KTM like RC125, RC200 and RC390 as well as its naked siblings are manufactured at Bajaj’s Chakan facility in Maharashtra. As a result, Bajaj will be exporting the Duke 390 and the RC390 to the United States from this facility. It has already exported these KTM models to China, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Germany and Austria. Hopefully, United States will soon feature in the list of countries, which has a growing market for KTM.
