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As several of our readers pointed out in the latest financial report from Honda, The United States, and North America as a whole, represent just a very small portion of Big Red’s total volume of motorcycle sales. For Honda’s 2011 fiscal year, North America sold a whopping 1.6% of the company’s total motorcycle inventory, while Asia accounted for nearly 79% of Honda’s total sales.

While Honda and other motorcycle manufacturers certainly makes better margins on the units they sell in North America and in Europe, the volume opportunities abroad in emerging markets are far more lucrative for OEMs.

With 1.2 billion people (17% of the global population) and still growing, India is the shining star in emerging markets, so it should come as no surprise that Honda is forecasting that 30% of its business will come from India by 2020, as the Japanese company further increases its presence in Asian markets.

Honda appears to be the only Japanese OEM making headway in 2012, as Yamaha has reported its sales figures for Q1 2012, and the tuning fork brand is down slightly worldwide, despite being up significantly in North America. Selling 1.599 million units worldwide in the first three months of the year, Yamaha is down 5.3% when compared to the 1.689 million units it sold last year during the same time period.

With most of the lost sales occurring in the Asian markets, Yamaha is blaming the currency exchange and the flooding in Thailand for their effects on its first quarter global sales. However on a smaller front, Yamaha can at least thank the rebounding economy in North America, as domestically the company is up 25% for Q1 2012 — as insignificant to its core business as the North American markets may be.

The untold story of the global economic collapse, Honda was on a worrisome three-year downward spiral during the recession. Posting sales of 453,000, 320,000, & 189,000 powersport units in 2008, 2009, and 2010 respectively, Honda’s 2011 fiscal year sales figure of 200,000 units posts a 8.1% gain for the Japanese company, and a new healthier trajectory.

Helping the company turn that corner, Honda has reported that its Q1 2012 (Q4 2011 fiscal) sales were up 39% over last year’s figures. Selling 53,000 powersports models in the last three months, Honda is projecting that its 2012 fiscal year will see 255,000 units in North American.

Posting its seventh consecutive quarter of sales growth, Ducati North America has started 2012 on the right foot, posting a 10.2% sales increase in its first quarter over last year’s figures. Seeing growth in all three of its national markets (Canada, Mexico, & USA), Ducati North America managed to buck the trend all through the recent recession, and now with the economy heating up again, the Italian brand continues to see strong sales growth. Ducati’s apparel and accessories sales were also up in Q1, posting a 98% increase over last year’s figures.

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.

The Motorcycle Industry Council’s Business Advisory & Forecast group has issued a report that predicts a sales decline in the US new motorcycle market for 2012. The news comes fresh on the heels of the 0.3% gain that the motorcycle industry’s leading brands experienced in 2011 in the American market, and is the first time that the MIC has forecasted future new motorcycle sales for the United States.

Adding some validity to the report is the fact that the MIC, in conjunction with the Institute for Trend Research, accurately predicted 2011’s modest sales growth. This news is interesting to note, as it goes counter to news about the recovering economy and the increased national average gasoline price, both of which have been linked to previous bumps in volume for motorcycle sales.

For the past day I have been plunking away at a spreadsheet, adding in values found in several years’ worth of press releases. You see, while most motorcycle manufacturers go out of their way to hide sales information in their media communications, they still leave enough clues that allow one to decipher these pieces of information in their entirety. A monthly figure here, a quarterly result there, a percent gain over last year mentioned, and you’ve got your self five or more months of sales data extrapolated.

That being said, there is no need to go through this much work to know that Husqvarna has been having a rough couple of years. Even by just taking a straw poll from any of the BMW Group’s many glowing sales reports, you’ll find a three to four sentence paragraph outlining the continued disappointment that the Italian-based Swedish brand has brought the German company. Often not even cracking four-digit monthly sales figures, Husqvarna has been on a sales decline that has spawned BMW Motorrad’s decision to push the once dirt-only brand into the street bike scene.

In its most recent media communication, the BMW Group has praised Husqvarna’s sales success over the past two months. With the subsidiary posting a 50% gain in January, and a 2% gain in February, Husqvarna has thus far this year posted a 15% gain over the first two months of 2011. All is well for Zie Germans, no? You know the setup, continue reading for the take-down.

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.

If you want a quick synopsis of how the European motorcycle brands performed in 2011, they killed it. BMW, Ducati, Triumph, and now KTM have all reported double-digit sales growth figures for 2011, a stark contrast to the still struggling sales of Harley-Davidson, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha.  Reporting a 22.4% sales increase last year, KTM made a cool €20.7 million in the process of selling its 81,200 units in 2011 (KTM sold 66,327 units in 2010).

Leading the Austrian company’s growth was the KTM 125 Duke, which has been a huge hit in India, its country of origin, but has also helped grow KTM’s market share in Europe. KTM is also reporting that its latest EXC models have helped spur sales, but we suspect it is the new small-displacement Duke, which was made with developing markets in mind, that is really responsible for the surge in sales growth. KTM says that it expects sales in Europe and North America to remain flat, while the company expects to see growth in emerging markets continue (no surprise there).

You know when a company starts quoting sales figures “in the last nine months of the year…” that the numbers from the first three months that they are not mentioning have to be pretty bad. Such is the case with American Suzuki, though the company’s overall performance continues to flounder in the this economy. In Suzuki’s fiscal nine-month period (April 2011 to December 2011), sales to North American dealers were up 160%, as wholesale unit sales to dealers rose from 13,000 units (mostly ATVs)  in 2010 to 34,000 units in 2011.

However despite shipping more models to dealers, Suzuki’s sales in North America were actually down 11.5%, as the Japanese company sold only 31,000 units in the nine-month period, compared to the 35,000 units it sold during the same fiscal period last year. Because of this dip in consumer sales, Suzuki has revised its sales predictions for the end of its fiscal year in North America from 50,000 units to 46,000 units. American Suzuki sold 51,000 units to consumers in 2010, meaning that for the 2011 fiscal year, Suzuki is expecting a 9.8% retail sales decline compared to last year.

Only MV Agusta would send a press release out on the weekend, Super Bowl weekend no less. Apparently unable to contain the excitement that the MV Agusta F3 has entered production, the Varese-based company has not only sent out a proof of life video, but also released some information about its three-cylinder supersport and the company in general.

Reportedly selling 12% more motorcycles in 2011 than 2010 (that’s a volume change that can be counted in the hundreds, not thousands), MV Agusta also announced that its orders for the 2012 MV Agusta F3 and 2012 MV Agusta Brutale 675 have nearly doubled MV’s expected yearly volume, though by our math the Italian company is still likely shy of the sales needed to break-even on the financial side of the equation.

With its assembly line running at nearly double its usual capacity, MV Agusta has put together a quick behind the scenes video of the making of the F3. A cool look on what occurs behind the curtain of Oz, it is interesting to note that all the bikes shown are the MV Agusta F3 Serie Oro, and not the base model. While the Oro is to hit dealers in the USA before its $13,495 sibling, you would think that MV Agusta would have a couple of those on the assembly line already as well, considering after all that it is the MV Augusta F3 base model that will comprise the bulk of the company’s orders.