Honda Q3 - "Strong demand driving growth"
By Ben Purvis
Honda's third quarter results show that in the first nine months of its financial year (the period to December 31, 2021) it experienced a strong recovery compared to the Covid-hit sales of 2020.
Globally, increased motorcycle sales are helping to offset a decrease in Honda's automobile sales caused by hangovers from the pandemic, and particularly the continuing semiconductor shortage.
The CB300R 'Neo Sports Café'
lightweight was updated with 41 mm Showa 'separate function front fork
big piston' USD forks, an assist/slipper clutch and Euro 5 compliance
for 2022. It completes Honda's 'Neo Sports Café' family - joining the
CB1000R, CB650R and CB125R.
Honda's YTD group motorcycle unit sales, including affiliates and joint ventures, were up a strong 2.184 million units (+20.6%) compared to the year-ago period. In contrast, the group's car sales in the same period declined -12.4%. Overall, for FY22, Honda is forecasting sales of just over 17 million bikes, including affiliates and joint ventures (+12.6%). Looking at Honda and its subsidiaries alone, the forecast is for 10.695 million motorcycle sales globally in FY22, up +4.2% on FY21, although the nine-month YTD sales are up +9.7% at 7.964 million.
In Europe, FY22 sales hit 240,000 Honda bikes in the first nine months, 81,000 more units than the first nine months of 2020.
In Japan, Honda's domestic unit sales are up 25,000 from 155,000 to 180,000; North American sales were +92,000 from 240,000 to 332,000. Asian market sales were up more than 1.6 units to more than 10.9 million in total.
In financial terms, those numbers mean Honda's motorcycle sales revenue is up from 1,258bn yen in the same period in FY21 to 1,620bn yen in FY22. The operating profits from Honda's motorcycle business rose from 152.3bn yen in the first nine months of FY21 to 232bn yen for FY22 YTD.
Despite the positive news for the first nine months of the year, the third quarter (Oct-Dec 2021) saw sales slowing in several markets, leading Honda to reduce its overall FY22 forecast from 17.5 million global motorcycle sales to 17.04 million. The forecast for Europe remains unchanged at 320,000 units; Honda has cut 460,000 units from its FY22 forecast for Asia.
