Motorcycle sales down in Q1 in AustraliaAccording to the latest data released by Australia’s Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), the market there suffered a -13.4 percent decline in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the same period in 2016.
Sales for the 2017 first quarter totalled 21,794 units compared with 25,160 for the same January – March period in 2016. The first quarter decline comes after a busy 2016 in Australia, in which the industry recorded its best annual result since 2009.
Both the road and off-road segments recorded declines during the first three months of 2017, with road bikes down -15.5 percent and off-road down -15.3 percent. The ATV/SS market showed only a small drop of -1.3 percent.
Scooter sales, which have been in slow decline for several years, fell by -22.3 percent. Piaggio remained top seller in the scooter market with 293 sales. Second place was taken by Vespa with 240 sales, and Honda third with 198 sales.
Harley-Davidson retained its top selling status overall among the road bikes with 2,261 sales for the first quarter, followed by Honda (1,943 sales) and Yamaha (1,455).
The top selling manufacturer in the off-road category was Yamaha with 1,734 sales; followed by Honda with 1,467 sales and KTM (1,393).
Polaris led the ATV segment with 1,244 sales. It was followed by Honda with 908 sales, and close behind it in third place, Yamaha with 845 sales.
In overall market share terms, Honda was “top dog” selling 4,516 units in total, followed by Yamaha (4,094 units), Kawasaki, Harley-Davidson, KTM and Suzuki.
The top selling road bike in Australia in the first quarter was Honda’s NBC110, which was also the best selling learner approved motorcycle scheme model (LAMS); Harley’s FXSB (Softail Breakout) was the top selling cruiser; Piaggio’s Fly 150 the top selling Scooter; Yamaha’s YZF-R3A and WR450F topped the sports touring and Enduro sectors respectively; Harley dominated the tourers, and Honda’s CRF 1000 ‘Africa Twin’ was the bestselling Adventure tourer, with their CRF 450R the top MX/off-road machine, and the ‘GROM’ the bestselling naked style bike.
www.fcai.com.au
