Chennai: The new BIS standards for helmets — which has done away with the weight limit for rider and pillion rider helmets — will help reduce costs by 10%-20% and will lead to a whole new range of low cost and low price helmets in the Indian market said Two Wheeler Helmet Manufacturers Association president Rajeev Kapur.
“Around 90%-95% of helmet sales, which are in the entry level category, will now be in the 700gm to 1.2 kg category where prices will be less Rs 1,000,” he said. The heavier and more expensive and will be restricted to the small niche of speciality riders, he added. Kapur’s Steelbird Helmets, has already launched a 700 gm light weight open face helmet priced at Rs 759 and another 800 gm open face helmet for Rs 849. “Earlier the weight restrictions meant that you could not sell to Department of Transportation (US standard DOT) or ECE (Economic Commission for Europe) certified helmets in India. We were exporting 1,400-1,500 gm speciality helmets to Korea, Philippines for example but couldn’t sell them in India. Now we can which offers better choice for riders and high-end motor sport consumers because Indian certification is not good enough for motorsport standards,” said Sidharth Khurana, MD, Studds. This, he added, will also help Indian exporters gain scale particularly since globally markets have been turning away from made in China helmets. Markets in Europe and Latin America are looking for non-Chinese made helmets so the focus is shifting to the three other big producers — India, Indonesia and Vietnam. “We are launching two new top end helmet products in the 1,100 gm range that are both American and European standard compliant priced at around Rs 8,000. The performance segment of the market is currently 8%-10% but growing very fast. This new guideline means we can also export more,” said Uttam Chandak, director-R&D, Vega Auto. While the weight restriction removal opens up the door to imports, currently the imported helmet segment is a minuscule 83,000 units per year for a helmet industry that’s 100 million units per annum.