The Piaggio Group announced consolidated net sales of €955 million for the nine months to September 30th 2013, down from €1,112,3 million for the first nine months of 2012.
The company has successfully defended its margins but saw net profit decline to €27.8 million from €44.4 million in the first nine months of 2012, but says that had it not been for exchange rate effects, sales would have been higher, and states that it has maintained leadership of the European two-wheeler market with an overall PTW share of 17.5 percent (26.3 percent share in scooters).
The company says that global shipments of Vespa models were up 21.3 percent in the first
9 months of 2013, with sales of more than 146,600, and that Moto Guzzi is bucking the trend in Western motorcycle markets with 9.8 percent growth.
Group chairman Roberto Colaninno is quoted as saying that Piaggio’s performance for the period was “positive, and particularly significant when considered in relation to the macro economic scenario in the first nine months of 2013”.
In the first nine months of 2013, the two-wheeler segment of Piaggio’s domestic European market continued to show the sharpest decline recorded since 2007, with aggregate volumes now 55 percent lower than those of five years ago – in line with the overall European trend reported by ACEM.
From January to September 2013 Piaggio saw a downturn of 13.1 percent overall (-17.8 percent for scooters and -5.5 for motorcycles), with what it describes as “an unprecedented drop in demand on the Italian market”.
Piaggio have reported an overall drop of -5.5 percent in motorcycle sales for the first nine months of 2013, but Moto Guzzi is bucking the trend in Western motorcycle markets with 9.8 percent growth |
The California 1400s and the limited edition MG V7s have been driving Moto Guzzi’s growth in major Western markets |