IDN forecasts “+7.0 percent motorcycle growth” for 2018The October/November edition of IDN includes the most recent ACEM EU new motorcycle registrations data (January to June 2018) and the latest national statistics from most of the market’s primary trade associations (January to August 2018).
Apart from registration anomalies such as the Euro 3 panic that gripped the industry at the end of 2016, generally, by August each year, some 80 percent of the annual sales of new motorcycles, mopeds and scooters have taken place, so the speculation about annual market performance starts to look a lot more reliable.
My ‘guesstimate’ in the last edition, made before the half year ACEM data had been released, that growth in registrations for the period January to June 2018 would be greater than +5.5 percent (IDN June/July) has proven to be correct. Indeed, I was on the low side, I was conservative in my forecasting.
As reported in this month’s front cover story, ACEM data shows that 564,851 motorcycles were sold in the EU in January to June 2018, growth of +7.2 percent compared to the 526,889 sold in the first six months of 2017.
Based on the available data to August (extrapolated ACEM/June data for France), it now looks like we can make a quite accurate forecast for 2018. IDN forecasts that 2018 will see a minimum +6.0 percent growth for the full 12 months of 2018, which equates to approximately 54,800 extra motorcycles sold in the (currently!) 28 member countries of the EU for a 968,500 annual total.
In fact, if some of the present trend data continues, growth could well be as high as 8.5 percent for the full year 2018 - an extra 77,500 motorcycles compared to 2017.
However, in all likelihood the eventual outcome will be somewhere between the low and the high forecasts - at around 6.5 to 7.5 percent. Based on what we are seeing in the detail of the data we have access to (which is by no means as current or as complete as would be needed for a super accurate forecast), I am prepared to go with 7.0 percent growth for the 2018 full year - an extra 63,900 motorcycles compared to ACEM’s 2017 figure, for a 2018 full year forecast of 977,600 new motorcycle registrations.
To fully understand what this growth means though, we need to go back to where this most recent cycle started - in 2013, with ACEM data showing that after the years of decline the market bottomed out that year at 748,529 EU motorcycle registrations.
The following year (2014) saw a return to growth (+7.29 percent, 803,122 units), followed by a further +10.99 percent growth in 2015 (891,369 units). Then came the statistical anomalies. The Euro 3 pre-registrations fuelled a spike of +13.27 percent apparent “growth” to 1,009,678 units for 2016.
In fact, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 of those motorcycles never actually went anywhere, least of all into the hands of an enthusiastic buyer and onto the roads of Europe.
‘fifth year of growth?’
That theoretical 2016 figure subsequently saw an equally theoretical decline of -9.53 percent in 2017, with new registrations recorded at 913,445 units - up on the 2015 figure, but woefully short of the 2016 number.
Based on the exclusive research we published earlier this year (IDN February/March), a “real” figure for 2016 was more likely to be in the region of 949,600 registrations for a +6.54 percent growth over 2015 - a result that confirmed that the rate of growth had started to slow down. That slowdown in growth rate continued through 2017 at +2.50 percent for registrations of around 973,500 units by the end of last year, when the figures are adjusted for the Euro 3 inventory that was sold in early 2017, but which fell outside the scope of that year’s registration data.
If we were close to being right in our calculations (a plus or minus two percent statistical error would still have resulted in a slowing of the rate of growth), then the +7.0 percent forecast (+63,900 units) we are making on the ACEM data would still be valid in the ACEM data context, but rather than growth to 977,600 units by the end of 2018, we could be looking at in the region of only 4,000 or so additional units over the real 2017 performance after all.
Rather than a recovery from a 2017 decline, instead we’d be looking at a fifth straight year of growth, but by such a small percentage compared to the “real world” 2.5 percent growth seen in 2017 that the market this year would, essentially, be flat - no growth at all worth celebrating.
Either way, it would take a massive leap forward in consumer demand for new motorcycles for us to see a genuine figure of over 1m sales for the year and a best EU market performance since before 2010. If we are right about the 2018 outcome, then such a moment could still be some time off and we may, in fact, be about to see a genuine (no statistical) decline in new motorcycle registrations in 2019 - and who knows, maybe beyond that too.
For now, though, we can at least hope that the prospects for the upcoming INTERMOT, EICMA and other shows, and for the year ahead, are better than at any time in the past decade - they should be, but it is clearly is misleading to try to put a number on the feelgood factor.
