International Dealer News IDN 150 August/September 2019 | Page 4
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COMMENT • COMMENT • COMMENT • COMMENT • COMMENT • COMMENT •
Second quarter ACEM data
points to market softening
he latest data from ACEM, the Brussels based international
motorcycle industry trade association, shows motorcycle
sales in the 28 European Union countries (ICE/Internal
Combustion Engine only) as growing by +8.67% compared to
the first six months of 2018 (612,690 units, up from 566,107 units),
with four of the smaller EU markets still to report (Bulgaria, Cyprus,
Denmark and Malta).
Last year new motorcycle registrations for the first six months represented over
half of the eventual total for 2018 at 53.74%, with 80.74% of registrations for
the first six months of 2019 coming from the 'Big Five' EU markets of Italy
(137,994 units, +6.0%), France (108,453, +12.2%), Germany (104,966,
+7.9%), Spain (86,839, +11.6%), and the UK being the softest of the 'majors'
(56,439, +2.1%).
The data presented in this month's 'StatZone' (pages
6 to 8) is a mixture of national trade association
reporting (as opposed to ACEM data) and includes
some results for July as well as for the first six months
of the year.
The data available that already includes July does
indeed appear to suggest somewhat of a softening
of new ICE motorcycle registrations (Germany and
the UK for example) as we head into the second half
of the year.
If overall growth in the second half does soften from the +8.67% ACEM is
reporting for the first six months, then rather than looking undercooked, our
initial forecast for 2019 of +3 percent (+/- 2 percent), which I revised quite
dramatically to around +8 or 9 percent in the context of ACEM Q1 data, is
looking more realistic than I'd hoped.
The ACEM Q1 data had new registrations of ICE motorcycles for the EU 28 at
around an always unsustainable and still probably Euro 4 influenced +19%.
The ACEM Q2 data shows new registrations of ICE motorcycles for 24 of the
EU 28 as having grown by +2.87% compared to Q2 of 2018 (369,994 units in
2019; 359,657 in 2018).
This means that the trend underlying the headline figure of +8.67 percent for
the first six months of 2019 as a whole is not everything it appears to be.
There is no question - based on the ACEM data for the first two quarters (and
therefore YTD through end of June), the market is softening and doing so at an
alarming rate.
Unless there is a quite dramatic and counter-intuitive uptick in new ICE
motorcycle registrations in the second half of the year, then our original forecast
of around +3% for the year is not just back in play but, actually, may be
optimistic. The eventual outcome may be an essentially flat year.
Coming into 2019, there already was adverse trend evidence and, despite a
storming first quarter in most markets (especially the 'Big Five'), what we are
T
now seeing play out is a continuation of the 'real' 2018/2019 trend.
For the record, ACEM is reporting electric vehicle registrations in 24 of the EU
28 for whom it has data so far as +82.7% for motorcycles (5,812 units for the
first six months of 2019 Vs. 3,181 for the year ago period) and +76% for electric
powered mopeds (28,577 units Vs 16,259 in the first six months of 2018).
In addition to ICE motorcycles and electric vehicles, ACEM's ICE moped data
shows that market as having grown by 10.98% for the first six months of 2019
at 119,249 units (107,453 for the first six months of 2018).
So, how to explain the softening of demand for 'conventional' motorcycles?
Well, one of the classic pillars of negative wisdom can be ruled out as,
increasingly, the motorcycle manufacturers are doing a better job of offering
better products in technology and reliability terms, with forward-facing
platforms that simultaneously recognise where the market's retro vibe and neo-
custom zeitgeist 'happy place' is to be found.
Pricing of all that tech and future-facing platforms is
an issue, for sure, and that also goes to the impacts
of one of the two remaining possible areas of
explanation. The market definitely needs to quicken
the pace of its lightweight and, above all,
middleweight displacement embrace and to be more
realistic about where that sweet spot lies and to take
notice of what manufacturers such as Royal Enfield
are doing to bring price, displacement, retro and performance together into a
demographically convincing alliance of verities.
The other primary issue is likely to be that age old enemy of 'macro economics'
and consumer confidence - especially in the context of the U.S. administration's
apparent determination to ignite a new cold war with trade as the battlefield,
and bomb the rules-based economic order it itself authored with the Bretton
Woods System back in 1944.
Having largely stood the test of time for some 70 years, it looks like, in the
absence of an Iron Curtain, the present administration is bent on erecting walls
of all kinds - including trade barriers. With the pace of electric PTWs adoption
dragging and the various major market deadlines for abandoning internal
combustion engines racing towards us, there is no question that even our
market's issues have got issues!
"+3% now
looks realistic
again"
Robin Bradley
Publisher
[email protected]