Some markets have seen the return to growth have a greater impact than others, and information released in February by the IVM, the motorcycle industry trade association in Germany, cites the growth having gone straight to the statistics for the overall size of the ‘Bike Park’ in Germany, the total number of motorcycles and other PTWs on the road there, with new record levels reached.
Now positioned as Europe’s second largest market in new motorcycle registration terms (behind Italy still, but ahead of France now), the IVM says that there are now more than 6 million PTWs on the road there in total, or at least road-registered, with 4,092,288 of them classed as motorcycles, with an additional 1,942,465 PTWs of under 50cc.
The latest monthly data from the IVM (at the time of going to press) showed motorcycle registrations for January in Germany at a statistically misleading -26.85 percent, but on such low volumes (1,812 units) it is likely that the sales of pre-registered Euro 3 units will have meant that the market was at worst broadly level with January 2016, in all likelihood somewhat up.
In total Powered Two-Wheeler terms (PTW), the German market was -36.69 percent at 2,210 units registered.
The top-selling motorcycle in Germany in 2016 was BMW’s all conquering R 1200 GS, with 6,932 units sold, and it maintained that position in January, with another 279 units sold. However, 2016’s second and third best sellers (Yamaha’s MT-07/3,398 units and the Kawasaki ER-6n/2,629 units) were supplanted by the BMW R nineT (115 units of all variants) and their S 1000 RR third (72 units); Honda’s CRF 1000 ‘Africa Twin’ is now up to fourth from fifth, with the Ducati Multistrada now fifth – but all on such low volumes that it is perfectly possible that enough pre-registered Yamahas were sold that the MT-07 could have maintained its 2016 momentum.
Indeed with 11 models in the Top 20, it is no surprise that BMW has continued to hold on to its number one spot in market share terms, scoring a massive and no doubt equally massively miss-leading 37.06 percent of all January’s new motorcycle registrations in Germany; Honda is shown as second at this stage with a 9.32 percent share, Ducati is third, followed by Yamaha and Harley-Davidson, as Europe’s ‘petrol heads’ continue to gobble up them “Big Inchers” in increasing numbers!
