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Case proven –“ motorcycles” now accounting for over 77 percent of new PTW registrations
The multiple challenges presented by this year’ s January and February new motorcycle registration statistics from around Europe( Euro 3 pre-registrations, low volumes etc.) mean that it is difficult to say, at this stage, whether or not the excellent growth seen in 2016 is going to sustain through 2017. In all likelihood, there has been some growth in January and February this year, regardless of what the official registration statistics from the trade associations show, simply because those pre-registered Euro 3 bikes are being sold, they are providing showroom action for Europe’ s dealers, albeit at no doubt heavily“ incentivised” pricing and extras packages, but because they count as“ preregistered”( despite the zero miles on them), they sit in the pre-owned sales statistics. The + 13.3 percent growth in new motorcycle registrations reported by ACEM for all EU markets in 2016 is an exceptional result. It follows an equally exceptional + 11.64 percent in 2015 and, given that it was such a dramatic reverse of the- 11.13 seen in 2013, the + 7.90 percent growth seen in 2014 was an equally impressive expression of a market recovery that had started to show through in the new registration statistics in the second half of 2013. The cycle that the industry has been through since 2001( earlier even) has been a rollercoaster of unprecedented proportions. In 2001 the market( EU countries) was worth 1,216,333 new motorcycle registrations; this grew to a 2007 peak of 1,524,602( five straight years of annual growth) before the first signs of trouble in 2008, when a- 7.31 decline presaged the financial crisis. That marked the first of six consecutive years of market decline, that saw us lose greater than 50 percent of 2007 motorcycle sales levels – that’ s a drop of greater than-51 percent in the six years that followed unit growth of + 34 percent in the five years from 2002 to 2007. At the“ bottom” of the market is 2013( 739,886 units), when the market had lost 35 percent of its 2002 unit sales in 11 years. The statistics I am discussing here are strictly EU markets. The additional registrations of between 36,000 at their lowest, and 59,000 at their peak, reported by EFTA markets( Norway and Switzerland) are exactly that, additional to these statistics. Also, this analysis has been motorcycles only so far, or what are categorised as motorcycles in the coordinated statistics that ACEM pulls together from the individual national trade associations, and those are based on the variable definitions that exist around Europe in national governmental classification terms. Those caveats notwithstanding, a comparison between motorcycles and total PTW( Powered Two- Wheeler) of the 14 years of industry statistics from 2002 to 2016 bear out in graphic detail a trend that I have been pointing to in the past three years as growth has returned. I have been pointing to an apparent trend for the growth to be strongest at the“ top end” of the PTW market in price-point and displacement terms, and the benefit of that trend that dealerships are therefore seeing in value and turnover terms. all time high
Okay- since we have still lost some 34 percent of peak market units, even after the growth seen 2014 – 2016, that“ benefit” is somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory. However, given the comparative average price points that are likely to be involved, the market may well be nearer to being caught up in Euro turnover and value terms than the registration statistics tell us we are. Which will go some way to explaining why the manufacturers appear to be doing better than the unit sales numbers would suggest, especially in terms of the migration of momentum in favour of the European manufacturers, while the majority of aftermarket vendors are reporting positive results.
2001 59.33 percent of new PTW registrations were categorised as In“ motorcycles”. By 2005 that had grown to 65.57 percent; by 2008 it had declined
again to 61.52 percent. What has followed since would, at first sight, appear to be counter-intuitive. As sales declined throughout the downturn, the percentage decreases were greatest in low value unit terms, with higher price, larger displacement machines taking a growing percentage of the PTW registrations that were taking place. By 2013, when the market reached its nadir, the share of total PTW sales being taken by larger displacement, higher value machines had grown to a 12 year high of 66.62 percent, and in the three years since, the three years of growth, that increasing share of higher price machines has continued to grow, and as of the end of 2016 stands at an unprecedented 77.23 percent of new PTW registrations. Conventional wisdom would tell us that a return to growth would initially be seen at lower price points, but in the case of the motorcycle industry the trend is the opposite – inexorably away from lower displacement, socalled“ entry level” machines( despite the growth of the“ Urban Mobility” culture). It would appear that we are locked into a trend towards higher price, more powerful machines being the primary growth market. This also goes against the conventional concerns expressed about the market’ s dependence on a mid-40s demographic, the apparent issues surrounding attracting youth entrants, and the commonly held preconceptions about the impacts of the changes that have been in-play in licensing and training terms. Are we seeing convention being overturned by an older, better trained entry point and ever growing concentration of available sales in the hands of older riders whose incomes permit higher price point entry or re-entry?
Robin Bradley Publisher robin @ dealer-world. com