If you haven’t seen World Superbike’s Race 2 at Assen yet, you will want to stop reading now. Battling for the last spot on the podium, Eugene Laverty, Marco Melandri, and Leon Haslam put on a great charge to the finish line. With Laverty getting some distant away from the two factory BMW Motorrad riders, Melandri and Haslam were left fighting for fourth and the bragging rights of beating the other.
Writing about BMW Motorrad’s quarterly sales announcements is starting to become an exercise in mad libs, and I really should just create a template that is full of praise and positive comments, leaving blank only the spots where the figures of units sold and percentage growth should go. Since I have no such template at my disposal, here we go again with the back-slapping about BMW’s sales juggernaut. Read onward for more sales news from Zie Germans.
Slowly but surely, Bajaj Auto continues to gobble up pieces of KTM’s stock. Taking its investment position now to just over 47%, Bajaj has acquired another 6.3% of the Austrian motorcycle manufacturer, and is projected to continue acquiring stock in the company.
The second-largest motorcycle manufacturer in India, Bajaj is also the second-largest shareholder in KTM, with KTM’s largest controlling position belonging to Stefan Pierer (KTM CEO) and Rudolf Knuenz (KTM Chairman of the Board), whose combined holdings come to just more than 51% of the company.
BMW Motorrad released yet another glowing sales report, as the German brand continues to build steam and market share in an otherwise luke warm and uncertain marketplace. Boasting a 1.8% worldwide sales increase in February and a 5.6% year-to-date (YTD) sales increase, BMW Motorrad has sold 12,078 motorcycles worldwide thus far in 2012. While the gains are modest at best, the news that BMW has found a way to grow despite the economy is something we have talked about ad nauseam. As such, I almost skipped this press release all together for our coverage, but then I saw a quote from Hendrik von Kuenheim, BMW Motorrad’s General Director.
After serving 18 years in the ranks of the BMW Group, Pieter de Waal will be stepping down as head of BMW Motorrad USA in March and formally retiring from BMW. Replacing de Waal will be Hans Blesse, who will leave his position as VP of Sales and Marketing at BMW Motorrad Germany, and take on the role of Vice President of BMW Motorrad USA. With 25 years of experience working for the BMW Group worldwide, Blesse has served in the company’s Canadian, Spanish, and German offices with roles in sales, marketing, and after-sales.
To build the Husqvarna Nuda 900, the Swedish brand started with the 798cc motor from the BMW F800 series, and then bored and stroked the parallel-twin motor to a 898cc displacement. Through its marketing of the Nuda 900 & Nuda 900R, BMW has been sure to include itself, making sure that the connection of BMW’s trusted road-going heritage is tied to the previously dirt-only brand of Husqvarna. It’s been an interesting process for both brands to say the least, the product of which we haven’t even begun to fully realize.
Taking a reversal on the process between BMW and Husqvarna, our friend Luca Bar (check out his site here) is back with another concept bike. Designing what he calls a BMW F900S, Luca has taken the F800S aesthetic and imagined it with the newly-revised 900cc motor from the Husqvarna Nuda. Not stopping just at the revised motor though, his F900S also gets some trellis-frame love, which the Nuda used in lieu of the F800’s twin-spar frame design. Adding in some updated bodywork, the total package looks very clean. More photos after the jump.
Husqvarna continues its push into the on-road market, and has debuted another concept while at the New York IMS show today. Already showing us the Husqvarna Moab Concept in Milan, the folks at Husky have continued the thought process with the Moab, and built a more off-road capable dual-sport, which they are calling the Husqvarna Baja Concept. Another modern-take on retro design, the Baja concept carries over with it many of the Moab’s bigger design features, while sporting a 19″ knobby front tire for better off-road use.
Husqvarna simply states that the concept uses a four-stroke liquid-cooled 650cc single-cylinder motor (same as the Moab), which surely will be sourced from BMW’s G650GS. The Baja is also being fitted with a five-speed wide-ratio transmission, fuel-injection, perimeter frame, and Brembo brakes. The design from Husqvarna looks fairly polished, and we wouldn’t be surprised if some form of the Baja or Moab made it into production (or a fusion of the two).
With the Swedish brand already releasing the Husqvarna Nuda 900, and set to bring the Huqvarna Strada into production sometime this year, BMW’s want-to-be rogue street bike company could have a robust line-up if it brings the Baja and/or the Moab into produciton. We hope they do, because out of all the street bikes we’ve seen from the brand, these two seem the most intriguing, and also happen to better fit the Husqvarna name as well. Photos after the jump.
We already told you that 2011 was BMW Motorrad’s best sales year ever, and that the BMW S1000RR topped the Bavarian brand’s charts here in the United States. Zie Germans must be feeling rather pleases with themselves right now (and rightfully so), as BMW has released more details about its all-time motorcycle sales record. Pushing out 104,286 units in 2011, BMW Motorrad was up 6.4% in 2011 over 2010, with each of the 2011’s twelve months outselling its 2010 counterpart. Toppling its previous sales record from 2007 (the height of the world economy), it says something about BMW’s current business strategy that it can best that figure in an economy that is still exceedingly weak in comparison.
It is interesting to note in which markets, and in which segments, BMW is finding this growth, because the answers are not necessarily our usual suspects. Basically doubling its worldwide 500+cc market share over the past four years, BMW now accounts for 12% of the worlds “big” displacement motorcycles by units sold per annum. This goes counter to the trend that we’ve seen, where small-displacement are being cast as the sales leaders for large brands (namely the Japanese Four).
BMW Motorrad crushed it last year by posting its best sales year ever, and finishing in sales 6.4% over 2010. With the United States being one of BMW’s largest motorcycle markets, it comes as no surprise then that the German brand posted strong sales here in the US. Up 7.4% over last year, BMW Motorrad USA continues to weather the rough economy for the Bavarians, which is perhaps unsurprising considering how zie Germans have faired the past few years.
What is surprising though is which model topped BMW’s sales sheets, and in case you are blind and didn’t see this story’s headline, it was not the venerable GS. Taking the superbike fight straight to the Japan’s backyard, the BMW S1000RR again dominated sport bike sales again in 2011, and was BMW’s top-selling model across its whole motorcycle line-up (I’d love to see the profits per model on this though). Proof that when German engineering is coupled with Japanese pricing a consumer hit is born, the S1000RR should continue to be a potent bike in 2012, as BMW Motorrad has given the liter bike a mild update for its third year of production.
The BMW Group has released its 2011 sales numbers, and the results for BMW Motorrad are very impressive indeed. Posting its best yearly sales figures ever in the brand’s nearly 90-year history, BMW Motorrad surpassed its previous high-water mark, set in 2007, of 102,467 units by selling 104,286 units in 2011 (Q1, Q2, & Q3).
Accordingly, sales for 2011 were up 6.4% over 2010, which saw the brand sell 98,047 units last year. Helping spur that sales growth was BMW Motorrad’s strong performance in December 2011, as the German motorcycle manufacturer delivered 4,232 units worldwide in the last month of the year alone, a 12.4% increase over sales in December 2010.
The bike that made the brand, the BMW R1200GS is about to get updated for the 2013 model year, and the Bavarians have been busy testing their new adventure bike. As such the ever questionable “spy photos” have made their way onto the interwebs, and we diligently give in to the new trend in motorcycle marketing to bring you some very clear photos of the 2013 BMW R1250GS. While the new BMW R1250GS looks ready for prime time, and is expected to be a liquid-cooled version of the now iconic GS, we imagine BMW is still surely stepping carefully with the R1250GS’s final design.
One of the best-selling motorcycles worldwide, the BMW GS has defined the now lucrative adventure-touring market segment. Accordingly, BMW must be keen on making sure the new 2013 BMW R1250GS doesn’t alienate its core constituency of GS riders. However, the German brand is surely also feeling the pressure to update its air-cooled line with water-cooled motors, as well as bringing other modern features to its motorcycles.