Motorcycle Global

In 2024 Honda Motor had 32% of world motorcycle market share. No company in mobility has so great a lock on the consumer in any vehicle category. How does one adequately expresses the scale of this sort of domination? Sales were up 6% year over year for a total just shy of 20 million units. That is more than the next four top selling brands combined. Profits are up. Margins are up. Growth is evident in most markets and segments. Honda is always overlooked by industry outsiders, business analysts, and inexplicably by most motorcycle and mobility trade media. Labelled "dull" or simply ignored as a commodity player, Honda is in fact the most innovative brand in the mobility space, filing more patents than anyone else in the two-wheel space over the last decade. Honda is the most successful brand in motorcycle racing history. Honda is largely responsible for defining, on a technical basis, most of the fundamental architecture of the modern motorcycle, from engine layout, to material applications, and manufacturing systems. Honda is also the originator of the most produced motor vehicle (with any number of wheels) in human history: the Super Cub C90, of which more than 100 million units were made (5 times the number of VW beetles made). The mobility landscape is changing, from electrification to shifts in geopolitical environments, but Honda has crafted an unassailable market position. Against such a titan, what strategy can startups and other brands employ? 50 years of market domination appears to suggest the only viable answer: imitation. Innovate, invest in production systems and compete everywhere. Do like Honda, or die. #honda #domination #motorcycle #motomarket #hondamotorcycle #moto #ev Honda Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. Suzuki Motor Corporation BMW Motorsport Ducati Motor Holding Hero MotoCorp TVS Motor Company Bajaj Auto Ltd Piaggio Group Motor1.com Adventure Rider (advrider.com) Motorcycle.com Andrew Grant Anil Valsan Gabrielle Coppola Harley-Davidson Motor Company Polaris Inc.

Click-bait thumbnail aside, this is the most cogent, plain speaking and intelligent primer on the demise of KTM by any media outlet (besides us :) #KTM #dasende #productplanning #motorcycleindustry KTM AG

America's tariff strategy is the going to be final nail in the coffin of that nation's two remaining domestic motorcycle manufacturers. The USA has not be a competitive motorcycle manufacturing nation in over 80 years, but at the very least, it's two surviving OEMs - Harley-Davidson Motor Company and Polaris Inc., carved small and until recently, profitable niches. However, technological obsolescence and the decline in global consumer interest in the cruiser typology, combined with increasing inflation inside the USA has caused severe market shrinkage for both brands. The latest American trade policies will only accelerate the crisis, by causing imported components to skyrocket in price while simultaneously increasing cost to vital export markets. For boutique American brands like Zero Motorcycles Inc., who are laden with two years of new-old stock and pressured by high prices, tariffs signal existential threat to continued operations. America is famous for business agility and technological innovation, but in the powered two-wheel industry they have been the exact opposite for decades: unable to pivot or develop technologically competitive hardware. The only saving grace was marketing and financial engineering, something that is lately failing to make up for the prior shortcomings. The new tariff regime is going to spell the end of exports, and will place additional price pressures on an American public with dwindling interest in overweight, overpriced and underwhelming motorcycles. Both Harley-Davidson and Polaris' Indian brand were unprofitable in 2024. What will 2025 bring? #motorcycleindustry #tariffwar #export #harleydavidson #polarisindustries #zeromotorcycles #brp #productplanning #motorcycleglobal #motorcyclemarketing

2024 was a record-braking sales year for motorcycles around the world, but it also saw shocking failures that challenged some long-held perceptions. Winner and Losers : What can we learn from these observations? What did the industry get right, and what did it get wrong? Flip through the deck and challenge our summery. What do you think were the biggest shifts in the P2W industry in 2024? #motorcycleindustry #productplanning #motorcycle #moto #p2w #honda Honda Harley-Davidson Motor Company LiveWire Polaris Inc. BRP TVS Motor Company Bajaj Auto Ltd Royal Enfield Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.

This is what success in the motorcycle industry looks like : strength through investments in R&D, and careful product planning. Note that Yamaha grew in the US, Europe and Japan, despite media noise about "market headwinds".

2024 saw Harley-Davidson Motor Company's lowest sales since 1998. A decade-long bull run in the premium motorcycle industry floated rival luxury brands like BMW Motorrad and Triumph Motorcycles Limited to successive record sales and profits. Both count the US as the most lucrative market, and both have enjoyed growth in every business metric there. Americans want big and expensive motorcycles, just not Harleys. This week's earnings call was far worse than the most pessimistic Wall Street estimates. Despite savage cuts to R&D and price incentives over the past year, the company saw declines in all aspects of the business, particularly margin, which fell to single digits. Polaris Inc. own heritage motorcycle unit, Indian Motorcycle Company has similarly struggled with profitability, as the entire "cruiser" segment continues to fade. Harley-Davidson is in structural decline, saddled with a heavy debt burden, uncompetitive vehicles with old technology and high retail pricing. Three different turnaround plans by two CEO's over the past ten years all failed to arrest a decade-long slide. The only saving grace, the ability to charge exorbitant prices to earn the industry's highest margins, has clearly too vanished. Harley-Davidson has been one of the most recognized brands in the world for a half-century, and represents American values to millions of people. But it is a for-profit business. The institutional investors, like pension and hedge funds, who make up the bulk of the company's stock owners will eventually look at the debt, bloating dealer inventory, and lack of competitive products, and look for the exit. Add in the potential impact of tariffs, affecting the import of parts and export of assembled bikes, and It becomes very difficult to see a path forward for this historic motorcycle company. #harleydavidson #americanmanufacturing #motorcycleindustry #moto #hog #polarisindustries #productplanning #motorcycles #branding

This news is both very sad and also maddening. That BRP walked into crisis after years of unsustainable consumer spending on "powersports", indicates how poorly the organization understands the industries they operate in. This is not the first crisis in BRP's (née Bombardier Inc.) history. The company rode the 1970s snowmobile bubble until it popped; then the watercraft explosion in the 1980's; and enjoyed fat profits in the side-by-side (SxS) ATV sector until, predictably, it too evaporates. With the on-snow and on-water product divisions shrinking for over a decade, and Can-Am Spyder three-wheelers not expanding, the future of the corporation depends on the road. It depends on the recently launched Can-Am motorcycle. With potential 25% tariffs bing imposed by the US, adding up to $4000 to the already eye-watering prices of $15-18k, it is difficult to imagine a happy 2025 for the storied Canadian brand. The world motorcycle market is growing, and nearly every serious motorcycle manufacturer has seen record or near record sales so far in 2024. The losers, brands like Harley-Davidson Motor Company and KTM AG have all been struck down by self-inflicted wounds: poor product-market fit and pricing divorced from consumer reality. Is BRP the next PIERER Mobility? https://lnkd.in/eH2mVm9c

Overleveraged with debt, hampered by staggering losses and uncompetitive business units, KTM AG parent PIERER Mobility declares insolvency. The biggest news of 2024 is not the continued success of Royal Enfield nor the continued decline of Harley-Davidson Motor Company and its electric motorcycle flop LiveWire, it is the stunning mismanagement and lack of foresight demonstrated by Europe's largest motorcycle manufacturer. KTM follows almost exactly the same tragic story arc as Aprilia Official: from a tiny, regional specialty motorcycle manufacturer, to an international championship winning mobility conglomerate in a couple of decades. Both were led by strong-willed men who relentlessly fought hostile markets to build over-achieving companies. And both overextended and overspent themselves to death, believing themselves to be invincible. Both believed they could defy gravity. Aprilia was forced into liquidation and to suffer the horrors of being absorbed by Piaggio Group, where is slowly withered into nothing. KTM rolled out fringe models that few wanted, and bought whole brands that it did not have the capability to properly develop. KTM acquired Husqvarna MotorcyclesGT, a brand that neither CAGIVA nor BMW Group could make profitable. They spent lavishly marketing extraordinarily expensive ebikes with very ordinary performance. They raced everywhere. KTM did not honour warranty claims promptly, or sometimes at all. Engine problems and recalls were many. Despite fantastic branding, bold designs and making fun motorcycles, the business fundamentals were fundamentally flawed. Global motorcycle sales are up. Rival European luxury motorcycle brands like Ducati Motor Holding, BMW Motorrad and Triumph Motorcycles Limited all enjoy boom sales. Pierer Group was the not victim of "market forces"... they injured themselves. We remain hopeful that Pierer Group is saved by an outside investor, and that the many employees of the group companies don't suffer. #ktm #motorcycle #motorcycleindustry #motorcyclemarket #mobility #motorcycleglobal

It is Halloween today, and there is nothing more frightening than whistling past the electric motorcycle graveyard... While global electric motorcycle sales continue to grow in many regions and sectors, the boutique, high performance arena has been a bloodbath. The ghosts of these brands, and the wailing of investors who lost everything, can be heard drifting across boardrooms throughout the mobility world. https://lnkd.in/e3YkCxh5 Read these real scary stories and learn why it is dangerous to ignore the lessons of the recent past. Or your electric mobility startup may end up in the electric motorcycle graveyard too. Happy Halloween #electricmotorcycles #productplanning #motorcycleindustry #ev #motorcycles #livewire #canam #brammo #zeromotorcycles #ridecake #acrvehicle #startup

LiveWire reported another catastrophic quarter of dismal sales and triple-digit losses, prompting parent Harley-Davidson Motor Company to make cuts. THE BACKGROUND ➡ Harley was the first legacy motorcycle OEM to launch a serious EV in 2018 ➡ Livewire intended to attract younger, tech-savvy customers to brand ➡ The Livewire was advanced for the time and enjoyed high profile marketing ➡ Harley spun off LIvewire as a separate company via SPAC in 2021 THE LIVEWIRE STORY ➡ Range and price wildly out of sync with market expectations and needs ➡ Sales were poor from the start, never approaching break-even ➡ Dealers and traditional customers pushed back on EV, hurting image ➡ New entry-level S2 models plagued with problems and multiple recalls As 2024 closes the third quarter report from majority shareholder Harley-Davidson leaves little to the imagination. Consolidated annual losses are over $100m; sales are below even the lowest expectation at less than 100 units; and operations are all being brought back into Harley-Davidson HQ with a 30% headcount reduction planned. The presentation makes clear that R&D will be reduced to save costs. Motorcycle Global ANALYSIS The investor relations presentation, naturally, spins the news with promises of a new model and some statistically-dubious claims of market dominance. There is no rational way to justify the continued existence of Livewire, as either a standalone company or brand within Harley-Davidson. It does not make money and is unlikely to turn around with the current product mix. Radically reduced R&D resources and being based around a campus of EV-reticent legacy engineers with no background in modern motorcycle technology make any future Livewire EV P2W a non-starter. The mainstream business and P2W media conclusion will be that there is no market for electric motorcycles. That is partially correct. There is virtually no market for expensive, low performance electric motorcycles such as Livewire, BRP Can-Am Origin, or Zero Motorcycles Inc. SR/F. As Energica Motor Company demonstrated, even a high-quality, high performance electric motorcycle without recalls can only sell in boutique volumes, at present. There is a booming market for affordable, beginner friendly electric motorcycles like SURRON USA, Talaria, Ryvid Inc., and electric mopeds like the Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. Neos. LiveWire consumed half a billion dollars to end up with miserable results. Results that any motorcycle industry professional in Japan, China, India or Italy would have, and did, predict. Motorcycles are not powersports, whatever that means. They are motor vehicles for mass transportation. The 1990's are over. Stop chasing 30% margins because that was a historical anomaly. It is past time for North American mobility to face facts and reorganize. #gameover #harleydavidson #brp #polaris #indianmotorcycles #motorcycle #productplanning #livewire #electricmotorcycles Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan India