THE latest data released by the motorcycle industry trade association in Japan (JAMA) puts motorcycles (of over 250cc) manufactured in Japan and exported to Europe in June 2015 at 9,512 units, -2.45 percent over June 2014 and down from 26,800 units for the month in 2007.
For the year-to-date Japanese manufactured motorcycle exports to Europe are broadly level, at +1.21 percent, 85,331 units for the first half of the year, which compares to nearly 259,000 units for the first half of 2007.
In total PTW terms June exports to Europe were -12.73 percent at 10,650 units and are broadly level for the year-to-date at +0.95 percent, 91,118 units.
The picture is even worse in the United States, where imports of 250cc+ domestic Japanese manufactured motorcycles were -37.19 percent at a mere 3,562 units (which is barely enough for one per dealer!) with the year-to-date there -31.25 percent at 19,097 units. To put that in context, June 2007 was worth 17,787 units, and the first six months of 2007 worth 191,000 units.
A lot more Japanese brand motorcycles and small cc machines are now coming into Europe and the USA from subsidiary and affiliate factories elsewhere in the world, but the data still makes alarming reading as the historically market-defining "Big Four" look increasingly like a "Big Two plus a few other models", as European and American manufacturers take ever increasing shares of a much smaller market in Europe and North America.
