Honda Openly Fortifies Positions, Haojue Secretly Advances

Haojue's move this time is impressive; no one knew Haojue had this trick up its sleeve, revealing to the industry this old enterprise's hidden layout and strategy.

Honda Openly Fortifies Positions.

In the past year-plus, Honda has been intensively active in the domestic market, successively launching 7 models of 150cc scooters in a short time, rapidly seizing the market like dumplings being dropped into a pot, and having already established a 150cc scooter stronghold.

Facing Honda's strong offensive, Haojue's response looks very passive, only conducting routine updates to its popular model UHR150, while launching a new model UFR150. The overall action pace is slow, forming a sharp contrast with Honda's swift offensive.

Not only that, the center-mounted headlight design of UFR150 sparked considerable controversy. Coupled with the product positioning overlap with UHR150, it left the industry and consumers unable to figure out Haojue's strategic intent. Most people believe Haojue reacted sluggishly in this round of market competition and has already fallen behind.

This scene is exactly like the Chu-Han Contention, when Xiang Yu saw Liu Bang burn the plank roads and march west, he mistakenly thought he had no intention of fighting for the world and completely let down his guard; the market also generally looked down on Haojue's competitive prospects.

Haojue Advances Covertly.

And just a few days ago, two pieces of news arrived from afar, quietly spreading to every corner of the market.

First, Haojue UFR150 was affixed with a Suzuki badge below the center-mounted headlight, officially launched as the Suzuki Burgman 150 in Southeast Asian and Latin American overseas markets such as Indonesia and Colombia. The entire vehicle was produced and exported by Haojue's original factory; only changing the badge made it a main scooter model under Suzuki. Immediately after, the DN150 that had been on the market for a year from Haojue also swapped the badge to Suzuki, pushed to overseas markets under the model GN160. The model's core design and power architecture followed the original Haojue version, only with fine tuning. Only then did people realize the reason for the 150cc scooter model overlap.

Haojue started reverse-exporting Suzuki, using Suzuki's brand halo to expand overseas markets. When the market was unprepared, they launched a silent ambush, joining hands with Suzuki to complete the counterattack against Honda.

It has to be said, after these two models were affixed with Suzuki badges, relying on Suzuki's years of accumulated brand sentiment and market reputation, the product image greatly improved, suddenly appearing high-end. Especially that flickering headlight of UFR150 right above the Suzuki badge, actually added a bit of domineering style.

Is this a sentiment illusion or a halo effect? It is certain that, no matter what, it will promote the sales of the two models to steadily increase, and will also make consumers re-examine the product strength of Haojue models. Friends who bought these two models might find a Suzuki badge and stick it on openly.

Facing Honda's continuous market offensive, Haojue did not blindly follow the trend, but stabilized the pace and took the route of differentiated competition. On one hand, in the 150cc displacement sector, it advanced covertly by exporting badge-swapped models, opening overseas incremental markets, avoiding domestic frontal competitive pressure; on the other hand, launched the TVL350 model, playing its mid-to-large displacement scooter trump card, dispersing Honda's firepower in the small displacement market, forming a high-low matching product matrix.

From the industry competition pattern perspective, Haojue's move this time was not a temporary action, but relied on its own mature manufacturing system and quality control capabilities, achieving a leap from OEM production to reverse export of autonomous models.

Although the outcome remains undecided, Haojue's restrained planning and steady advance have shown the market the possibility of changes in the 150cc model sector pattern, which is worth our continued focus.