Italian market growth

Italian market sees third month of growth

For the first time since the downturn started to bite, the Italian market has seen motorcycle sales grow for three consecutive months.

In April this year, sales were up by 8.95 percent at 20,198 units (from 18,539 units in April 2013), having been up by 28.91 percent in March this year (17,997 units compared to 13,961 in March 2013), and, as previously reported, up by 10.25 percent in February.
For the year-to-date, motorcycle sales in Italy have totalled 56,547 units (compared to 50,649 for the first four months of 2013), which puts the market up a total of 11.64 percent for the first four months of the year.

Like many others, the Italian market started to see the rate of decline in new motorcycle sales bottom out in September last year, and while the historically most important months in Italy (May, June and July) will determine whether or not the market there really has turned a corner, the March and April figures are particularly encouraging.
In 2013, sales were down by 25.5 percent for the full year, following a 19.04 percent decline in 2012. If the market continues to see an average monthly growth of around 10 percent for the remainder of the year, then Italy’s motorcycle sales will have recovered from last year’s 153,863 units to something in the region of 170,000 units.