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Big sales growth numbers are going to be all the rage this year, as the motorcycle industry recoups lost sales during the pandemic, and we see a resurgence of people getting outside on two wheels.

So while the headline that Ducati is boasting a 43% increase in sales for the first six months of 2021, compared to the same time period as last year, sounds pretty impressive, the bar is pretty low.

If a motorcycle company doesn’t post double-digit sales figures for Q1 or Q2, now that is something worth talking about.

We now take a break from our usual doom and gloom when it comes to Harley-Davidson motorcycle sales, to report that the Bar & Shield brand has reported a stellar first quarter to 2021.

What we expect will the first of many motorcycle manufacturers to see strong growth in the new year, Harley-Davidson saw a 9% increase in motorcycles sold in the first three months of this year. Boom goes the dynamite.

Everyone knew that the coronavirus outbreak was going to be hard on sales for the motorcycle industry, but no one was certain on how big of an impact the global lockdown would be…until now.

The first shoe to drop, Harley-Davidson has released its first quarter report for 2020, and the numbers are not good.

The report shows that Harley-Davidson motorcycle unit sales in the USA are down 15.5% (22,732 units sold) compared to this time last year, with international sales taking an even bigger hit, to the tune of a 20.7% drop (16,707 units sold).

This means a total unit sales decline of 17.7% for Harley-Davidson worldwide, with 40,439 units sold around the world in the first three months of 2020, down from the 49,151 units sold last year during the same time period.

Harley-Davidson is reporting its first-quarter results for 2019, and as you might expect, the Bar & Shield brand continues to sink with its worldwide sales figures. As such, Harley-Davidson saw sales decrease worldwide by 3.8% in Q1 2019, with US sales down 4.2% compared to the same time last year (international sales were down 3.3%).

This news continues a trend for Harley-Davidson, as it continues to see its sales figure moving downward, which is following the overall trend in the US motorcycle industry, where sales are down 4.7% in Q1 2019.

From a relative point of view, this news is perhaps not so bad for Harley-Davidson, as it outperformed the market (though it owns a considerable size of the relevant segments), and in the process of that, the American brand picked up marketshare in its home market

This is of course the business equivalent of escaping being eaten by lion, by merely out-running the person fleeing next to you.

Ducati Motor Holding is reporting that it has sold over 50,000 units to customers, for the first time ever. This is a substantial improvement over the 40,650 units that Ducati delivered at this time last year, and the 45,100 units the company sold to customers in 2015.

This news is a bit of a red herring though, as the sales increase comes due almost solely because of the addition of the Ducati Scrambler line, which in the first three quarters of the year was at 13,609 units sold.

As we have reported before on Asphalt & Rubber, the sales increase being posted by Ducati is a bit of red herring with the brand. While the Scrambler line has shown strong growth for Ducati, the rest of the model lines have been weak for the year.