KTM, Husqvarna and GasGas owner PIERER Mobility AG (Austria) has said that its first half-year of 2021 performance puts it on track for an 11th record year with revenue of € 1,078.0m (+80% vs. H1 2020) and EBIT of € 102.6m from € 1.7m for the first half of 2020. Unit sales of 215,646 motorcycles and e-bikes are reported (176,045 of them being motorcycles, which was +95% on the first half of 2020).
Organizers of the UK Motorcycle Trade Expo (British Dealer News) have confirmed the decision to postpone the show that was due to be held near Coventry in the English Midlands in October 2021. Expo director Andy Mayo said "the risk involved still outweighs the investment required to stage Expo in the successful format exhibitors and visitors have come to expect. It's the second year in a row we have had to postpone, but with so much interest being shown by exhibitors, Expo 2022 is set to be a bumper show."
Reuters reports that the Indonesian Energy Ministry has launched a pilot project to convert motorcycles that run on combustion engines into electric-powered vehicles, part of a national drive to make transport more environmentally friendly. The project has successfully converted 10 such motorbikes and is aiming to convert 90 more by November. The government has set a target of having 13 million electric motorbikes - including converted ones - and 2.2 million electric cars on the roads by 2030. It has also pledged to stop all sales of vehicles powered by combustion engines by 2050. Indonesia had more than 15 million cars and 112 million motorcycles on its roads as of 2019.
New motorcycle registrations in July for Germany were -23.20% on the same period of 2020 at 13,317 units, but up on July 2019 by over a thousand units. For the January to July period, the German market was -3.98% at 84,701 units YTD, which is also slightly down on the 2019 YTD figure of 87,512. In total PTW terms, the German market was -1.66% at 138,497 units YTD. The top-seller remains the BMW R 1250 GS. With seven models in the top 25, no surprise that BMW remains market share leader, having sold 21,331 units YTD for a 25.18% share; Honda is second, followed by Kawasaki, KTM and Yamaha.
Cardo Systems' 'Cardo Coaches' program is an opt-in resource that increases accessibility for Cardo products among motorcycle and powersports instructors. Featuring Cardo's popular PACKTALK BOLD and all-new PACKTALK headphones for seamless, real-time two-way communication, approved participants will receive a 20% discount on select PACKTALK bundles along with other special promotions.
Suzuki global motorcycle shipments and profits were up for Q1 of its 21/22 financial year (April - June 2021) with total global unit shipments +32.3% compared to the same quarter in 2020 at 363,000 units; behind the 456,000 units shipped in the same period in 2019. Shipments to Europe were flat at 10,000 units (15,000 in the equivalent 2019 period). North American shipments down at 10,000 from 19,000 in the 2020 period, having been 12,000 in Q1 2019. Domestic Japanese sales were +28.3% compared to 2020. At 57.5bn yen, revenue from motorcycle sales for the period was +64.5% up on the same period in 2020 (a 7.7% margin) and modestly below the 65.6bn seen in the 2019 period (which had produced a 3.4% operating profit margin).
Kawasaki motorcycle unit sales were +31.25% in Europe for Q1 of its 21/22 financial year at 21,000 units. For the United States, they were up by over 230% at 20,000 units compared to just 6,000 for the same period in 2020. Total unit sales for all developed markets were 55,000 units (+86.20%) and +144% at 61,000 units, with the Philippines its largest such market. Unit sales translated to net sales revenue of 113.5bn yen for the quarter (+54.5% over the 58.9bn yen recorded for the corresponding period in 2020, for an operating profit of 14.8bn yen (a substantial improvement over the -5.9bn yen loss incurred for the year-ago period).
Yamaha total global unit sales were 2.312m units for the first half of 2021, compared to 1.709m for H1 2020 and 2.516m for H1 2019. European unit sales were 116,000 for the first half year (+17.2%) compared to 99,999 for the year ago; and, more interestingly, +6,4% compared to the 109,000 units sold in Europe for the first half of 2019.
Sources: AMD, IDN, FT, Reuters, PSB, MPN, BDN, MCN, AP, Bloomberg, MSNW, Electrek, electricmotorcycles.news, RideApart.com, Motor1.com, Cycle World, motorbikewriter.com