The latest statistics released by the German motorcycle industry trade association (IVM), for the period to the end of November 2017, are still affected by the year-ago rush to pre-register unsold 2016 Euro 3 inventory before the December 31 2016 deadline.
In motorcycle registration terms, the market was down by -22.46 percent on low volumes in November (2,527 units) having been down by -14.18 percent in October and -22.46 percent in September.
New registrations in Germany are running at -8.45 percent for the 11 months of the year to date, but allowing for the Euro 3 pre-registrations and other factors affecting dealer inventory and unit sales for 2017, the market is, in all probability, broadly ‘flat’ for 2017 so far, in the region between -2.5 and +2.5 percent in motorcycle sales terms.
Though heavily incentivised units, the Euro 3 models that were pre-registered in the final quarter of 2016 will still have been “new” machines as far as consumers were concerned and will have been sold during the first half of this year, artificially reducing the apparent market performance. The pre-registrations pushed the German 2016 statistics to show an artificially high +15.01 percent for the year, German new motorcycle registrations have been +5.59 percent and +10.75 percent for 2015 and 2014 respectively.
As is usual these days, BMW’s R 1200 GS continues its inexorable march towards global domination having sold 8,236 units YTD, leaving Yamaha’s MT-07 eating its dust in second with 3,459 units sold, followed by the Kawasaki Z 650 (2,635 units), Honda’s CRF 1000 ‘Africa Twin’ (2,534 units) and Kawasaki’s Z 900 (2,184 units).
With 7 models in the top 20 selling list it is again no surprise that BMW is motorcycle and total PTW market share leader so far this year in Germany, with 24,269 motorcycle units sold for a 24.55 percent increased market share. Honda is second (12,529 units sold for a 12.67 percent market share), with Yamaha third (10,759 units sold for a 10.88 percent market share) followed by Kawasaki, KTM, Harley-Davidson, Ducati, Triumph, Suzuki and Husqvarna tenth.
