Ducati North America boosted its market share across the United States in the first quarter of 2009, with record sales fueled by the Monster and Superbike line of motorcycles.
Ducati now boasts more than 10% of the sport and street bike sales in 20 key U.S. metropolitan markets, with the brand capturing 6% sales across the country.
Our day wouldn’t complete if we didn’t bring you gloom from all four of the Japanese manufacturers; and yes, even Yamaha wasn’t spared the wraith of the global economic slowdown. Yamaha Motor Corporation is reporting double-digit percentage sales drops in its two-wheeled and four-wheeled retail sales.
Yamaha said its U.S. motorcycle retail sales of 21,000 units is a 30% dip from last year’s numbers. Similarly, its U.S. ATV retail sales fell 26% to 17,000 units. This number is at least better than the ATV industry average of a 33% sales decrease. Overall for its worldwide operations, Yamaha reported a sales decline of 35.5% from the year-ago quarter, and a net loss of $189 million for its first quarter, which ended March 31.
Source: PowerSports Business
Suzuki Motor Corporation is reporting its 3rd quarter in a row of sales dropping in its European and North American markets. In North America, the company sold 88,000 units, weighing in at a 34% reduction from last year’s numbers. Suzuki fared better in Europe where it sold 114,000 units, or a a 24% decrease from last year. Yes the bleeding continues, but at least .
Source: PowerSports Business
Honda North America is reporting that its combined motorcycle, ATV, and personal water craft sales fell by 52% last quarter, compared to last year’s numbers. For motorcycles alone, Honda’s North American new unit sales totaled 45,000, or a reduction of about 47% from last year’s marks, whereas the company’s total motorcycle sales totaled 72,000 units, nearly half of the 150,000 units sold last year.
For its entire fiscal year, Honda’s North American motorcycles segment sales totaled 320,000 units, or a drop of 29%. All eyes will on this quarter to see if the company can turn around this death-spiral in what is usually the best time of the season as far as motorcycle sales go.
Source: PowerSports Business
First quarter numbers for the powersports industry are coming in, and they don’t look good. New unit sales were down more than 30% compared to Q1 of 2008. This drop is attributed to both the economic slowdown, as well as the ban on youth-designed ATVs and motorcycles with lead paint.
It looks like manufacturer, Roehr Motorcycles, has recently announced the opening of their new Santa Monica, California sales office. The new office is located on the beach in Santa Monica, CA in the heart of the Southern California motorcycle scene, making this the first business decision Roehr has gotten right since borrowing heavily from Italian motorcycle designs and a GM/Ford business model. Well done boys.
The Roehr 1250sc will be available in Santa Monica for private demo’s beginning in April.
Source: Roehr Motocycles via 2 Wheel Tuesday
It would appear that nobody is immune from the wrath of the recession. Senior management at previously-healthy Ducati have just swallowed a ‘voluntary’10% pay decrease, and have agreed to give up their future bonuses.
Yamaha is reporting its first quarterly loss in over 4 years, with a fourth-quarter loss of $467 million (compare that to its profit of $41 million in the fourth-quarter of 2007). Since Yamaha gets nearly 90% of its revenue outside of Japan, the strong yen doesn’t help matters much either. The yen gained 17% against the U.S. dollar in the fourth quarter, thus eroding the value of overseas sales from their usually fat margins.
It should shock few people at that is point that in 2008, Yamaha lost customers in North America and Europe as would-be buyers cut recreational toys like motorcycles out of their budgets due to the…you guessed it…credit crisis and falling home values. In response to this, Yamaha is expected to cut the salaries of its executives by as much as 20% from February to December in order to hedge cut-costs and as a sign of unification within the corporation (a common act in Japanese corporations, GM take note).
Despite this litany of bad news, Yamaha’s shares were seemingly unaffected, and closed at 880 yen at the end of trading yesterday. Also, the stock has only dropped 5.6%t so far this year. Investors are either hopefully of Yamaha’s ability to weather the financial storm or saw this coming a mile away. We’re guessing the latter.
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The 2008 financial for BMW Motorrad are in, and the verdict is CH-CHING! Despite what the economies around the world are saying, BMW sold 101,685 bikes in 2008, just .8% off of last year’s numbers. Continue reading to see the full sales breakdown, and win a free kitten.
J.D. Power and Associates has just released a report that details some of the major reasons why motorcycle buyers purchase one bike over another. After talking to over 3000 customers in September and October, the report outlines four major factors for purchasing desiions, namely: why a buyer bought from one brand rather than another. The short answer is: The Dealer, the long answer is after the jump.
The world markets may be down, and stores may dropping out of business like it’s third period French class, but Ducati is finding the economic downturn to have an upside on its balance sheet.
Ducati’s sales revenue for the first three quarters of 2008 grew by 25% compared to last year’s figures. This means to close to $417MM in revenue for the Bologna Bandits, with their bottom line looking 87% better than before, totaling in at $41MM.
Why now brown cow? Well shipments from Desmo-central to dealer floor rooms has been up by 19% for the year so far, with sales up 8% worldwide. In the meantime, worldwide industry sales are down 6%. Evidently, those cars that people aren’t buying, is not equating into motorcycle purchases (you know…for the mileage advantage)
The Bologna Boys say they are still on track to achieve a forecast 20% growth in worldwide sales for full fiscal year, up from a predicted 15% sales growth.
How are the other European manufacturers doing?
KTM has had a 50% drop in operating profit for the full 12 months of its fiscal year, closing the books at $21MM. The House of Orange (not Oranj) is blaming this decline on a bad Dollar to Euro exchange rate, and plans to cut motorcycle production for the 2009 season by 10%.
Piaggio (owner of Aprilia, and most of Europe’s scooters) is also cutting back on production across all its motorcycle and scooter brands after depressing results for the first 3 quarters of 2008. Overall sales were down by almost 6%, falling 10% in Europe, which accounts for about 80% of its bike and scooter sales.
BMW, while slightly more insulated, is feeling the pain too, with global motorcycle sales down by 2.5% in the same period, and profit from bikes falling by nearly 16%.
Source: visordown
In other financial news, the trade-deficit for sportbike hotness in the United States has increased another 300%. Sorry Buell.