Tag

KTM AG

Browsing

There is quite a lot of buzz going on right now regarding KTM's upcoming 490 series of motorcycles - some of it is new information coming to the light, but most of it just rehashing old stories to fill in a dearth of headlines.

So, we figure we would sort wheat from chaff, and share everything we know and suspect so far from KTM's next engine platform, and put it into one place for our A&R Pro subscribers.

To continue reading this story, you need to have an A&R Pro subscriber account. If you have an A&R Pro account, you can login here.

The future of Ducati seems to be always up in the air, especially with Volkswagen AG’s constant back-and-forth when it comes to selling the motorcycle brand.

The German’s latest attempt to sell Ducati may have faltered in the boardroom, but there is new reason to believe that acquisition talks could be started for Ducati, as KTM CEO Stefan Pierer has expressed interest in owning the Italian motorcycle company.

Talking to German-language publication Speedweek, Pierer expressed his interest in adding Ducati to his stable of motorcycle marques, and floated some ideas on how Ducati could fit into KTM’s overall two-wheeled strategy.

His thoughts are…interesting, to say the least.

Last year proved to be a tough year for many brands, especially those with operations in the United States, but that wasn’t the case for Husqvarna. The rebooted Swedish brand is seeing good life while under its Austrian ownership.

Making 2016 a very good year for Husqvarna, the brand is reporting a sales increase of a whopping 43% over 2015’s sales numbers. That is no small feat for Husqvarna, as 2015 was already a record year for the dirt-focuses brand, where it saw a 32% increase.

Of course in many ways, up is the only direction Husqvarna can go, after its purchase by Pierer Industrie AG. Still, Husqvarna’s figure of 30,700 sold motorcycles in 2016 is a marked improvement from the near 10,000 units it was producing while part of BMW Motorrad.

News out of Austria says that KTM is gearing up to pull its shares off the public stock market. The move comes from a request by Cross Industries, which is run by Stefan Pierer and is the largest shareholder of KTM’s stock, with 51.4% of the shares.

With Indian motorcycle manufacturer Bajaj owning another 48%, this means the announcement only affects roughly 0.6% of KTM’s overall stock, which is floating around on the Third Market (Dritter Markt) of the Vienna Stock Exchange.

According to KTM’s press release on the issue, Cross will offer €122.50 per share for the outstanding stock, which will then make KTM officially a privately held company.

KTM continues to challenge BMW Motorrad as the top European motorcycle manufacturer (by sales volume), and has set a company record for sales in the first half of this year.

Selling 70,469 units in total, KTM is just shy of the 70,978 mark left by BMW Motorrad during the same sales period, so it will be interesting to see if the Austrian brand can close the gap in the final six months, as it has done the previous two years.

Friendly competition aside, the news is quite positive for KTM. The six-month sales figure represents a nearly 28% increase in unit volume, while top-line revenue is up 17.6% (€410.3 million, a record as well) and bottom-line income (EBIT) is up whopping 82.6% (€33.6 million). KTM has also increased its ranks by 204 people during the first half of 2014.

Stefan Pierer’s acquisition of Husqvarna continues to baffle me. You will note I say Pierer, and not KTM, bought Husqvarna, since the Austrian CEO used Pierer Industrie AG in the transaction as a means to help side-step European antitrust issues. After all, we can’t have Europe’s largest dirt bike manufacturer, nay largest total motorcycle manufacturer, gobbling up even more brands in the two-wheeled world. But, I digress.

For as big of an issue as it might be that KTM, by proxy, has swallowed another dirt bike brand, I still do not understand the thinking behind this madness. Dropping to four-digit yearly sales, it wasn’t until BMW started taking the off-road brand into the on-road market did signs of growth appear again at Husky.

Developing three road bikes (Husqvarna Nuda 900, Husqvarna Strada 650, & Husqvarna Terra 650), with three more concepts waiting in the wings (Husqvarna Moab, Husqvarna Baja, & Husqvarna E-G0), it is with even more confusion that we learn that Pierer & Co. intend to kill the Husqvarna Nuda project and its other street siblings.