Pierer Mobility is once again spilling the beans on its holdings, releasing the 2019 sales results from the KTM and Husqvarna motorcycle brands.
To that end, the combined effort sees another sales record for the group, with 280,099 motorcycles sold last year. This marks a 7% gain over 2018.
This makes 2019 the ninth year in a row that the KTM Group of motorcycle brands has seen positive sales growth, which is not a claim that too many brands can lay their hands on.
The yearly results for Harley-Davidson are out, and once again they paint a dark figure for the iconic American motorcycle brand, as its total worldwide sales collapsed like a dying star, with a decline of 4.3% to bring the company to a total of 218,273 units sold worldwide.
Things were worse in the domestic market, with Harley-Davidson’s sales in the USA showing a 5.2% drop (125,960 units) from 2018’s figures.
This leaves the Bar & Shield brand’s international sales down an even 3% (92,313 units) – for those doing the math.
Good news from the Bavarians, as BMW Motorrad reports that 2019 was the company’s best sales year…ever (again).
According to the German company’s tallies, BMW Motorrad sold 175,162 motorcycles and scooters last year, a bump of 5.8% over the figures from 2018 (165,566 units).
As expected, Germany remains the primary market for BMW Motorrad, with 26,292 units sold last year (up 10.4% from 2018). Crunching the math further, Germany accounts for roughly 15% of BMW’s two-wheeled sales.
The rest of Europe was strong for BMW Motorrad as well, with the European market up 7% overall for BMW – France (17,300 units), Italy (15,580 units), Spain (12,607 units) and the Great Britain/Ireland (9,611 units).
While news of the Ducati Superleggera V4 is breaking the internet right now, other headlines are also coming out of Bologna, as Ducati has released its 2019 sales figures.
Tallying a total of 53,183 motorcycles delivered to customers worldwide, Ducati managed to beat the 53,004 units from 2018 – an increase of 0.34% in worldwide sales, for those who are counting.
Holding that figure back though was the brand’s progress in the United States, with the American market dropping close to 2% compared to last year, with 7,682 motorcycles sold last year.
Official data on the US motorcycle industry for 2019 isn’t out yet, but Asphalt & Rubber has seen preliminary numbers, encompassing the first 11 months of the year on new motorcycle sales, and those numbers show that the USA continues to have essentially zero growth.
According to the documents supplied to us by our Bothan spies, from January to November of 2019, the US motorcycle industry grew a whooping 0.1%, with most of the major brands posting moderate single-digit losses for the year on new bike sales.
While motorcycles sales in the United States continue to slip, sales in Europe continue to grow. I use that line almost every time I write about this subject – largely because it’s the truth.
The fact is that there is a fundamental difference about what is going on in the European markets versus what is going on here in the United States, and it shows in the sale data.
Reporting on the first half of the year so far, the European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (ACEM) says that the European motorcycle market is up 9.1%, compared to the first-half of 2018.
While the rest of the industry walks on pins and needles, the Piaggio Group is celebrating a strong first-half to the 2019 sales year, with overall unit sales up 9.2%.
That number isn’t just all Vespa scooters though (however, the Italian brand does sell quite a few of those), as Piaggio reports that its motorcycle sales saw a 14% bump in gross revenue.
The Italian conglomerate pegs the new Moto Guzzi V85 TT for the sales boom over last year, which is quite a feat since 2018 was a strong year for the Piaggio Group as well.
Sales continue to slip and fall for Harley-Davidson, as we see from the company’s second-quarter earnings report, which was was released today. Worldwide, the Bar & Shield brand saw an 8% drop in Q2 sales for 2019, when compared to Q2 2018.
This breaks down to an 8% drop in sales for the United States, with international sales showing a similar decline of 8.9%. For comparison, the relevant heavyweight motorcycle industry was down 4.9% in the USA during the same time periods.
On the dollar side of the equation, Harley-Davidson reported a net income of $195.6 million earned, from a consolidated revenue of $1.63 billion in Q2 2019.
This is nearly a 20% drop in net income, when compared to the $242.3 million that Harley-Davidson made on the $1.71 billion in consolidated revenue in Q2 2018.
This news continues an obvious trend for Harley-Davidson, as its sales continue to shrink each year, which is affecting the company’s bottom line earnings.
The 2019 model year is looking good for Ducati, with the Italian brand reporting a 5% sales increase in the first quarter of this year, over the same time period in 2018.
In total, Ducati sold 12,541 motorcycles in Q1 2019, compared to the 11,949 units it moved in Q1 2018, with most segments from the Italian manufacturer showing growth.
That growth was highlighted with strong sales for Hypermotard 950, though it is bookended with the superbike segment, which saw a noticeable drop (13.5%) at the start of this year.
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.