One (partial) of good registration statistics doesn't guarantee a good year ahead, but with the exception of the UK, the results for the first two months of the year in Italy, Germany and Spain suggest a good start to 2023.
The most recent data we have seen for the market in France (ACEM) show motorcycle registrations for the full year in 2022 at 195,350 units. This is a -6.6% decline from the post-Covid bounce of 210,535 units in 2021. Therefore, there is every chance that France is now locked into a decline cycle.
The UK is also seeing 'soft' registrations so far, with the +2.01% growth seen for full year 2022 (108,510 units) camouflaged by a decline trend that set in through the second half of the year. That trend has continued into 2023, with motorcycle registrations dropping by -5.8% for the first two months of 2023.
However, elsewhere among the 'Big Five' markets that account for some 80% of motorcycle registrations in Europe, the initial reports are very encouraging though.
“little more than best guesstimates”
In Italy, Europe's largest market in terms of recent annual unit numbers, the first quarter was up by a storming +18.99% at 38,976 new motorcycles registered for the first three months. That is building on what was an excellent 2022, with +6.35% growth last year (126,571 units).
The market in Spain has started well too, with +12.46% growth for Q1 (43,524 units) after +6.30% growth in 2022 (175,525 units).
However, the star of 2023 so far is Germany. Last year saw the market decline by -7.22% (107,992 units), but the data from the IVM for January and February show +24.86% growth year-to-date with 15,275 new units registered.
January and February data can be notoriously unreliable and can be suppressed by a wide range of factors - from weather right through to the impacts of a regulations driven rush to pre-register units before the prior year end.
Conversely, they can be artificially inflated by short term factors such as winter promotions, inventory over supply, logistics bottlenecks unwinding or new models arriving late. Either way, treat the data we are seeing so far with caution.
In the case of Spain, and especially Italy, they will be a more reliable indicator of what lies ahead - Q1 data includes March, one of the best months in most markets.
Forecasts are little more than best guesstimates though. In febrile times such as these, what happens in the first quarter is not necessarily a sound basis for confident second half year forecasts. It never has been. All that said, I'm sure most of us will accept what we are seeing so far. Who wouldn't rather have a good start to the year than not?
Since I wrote the last edition of International Dealer News, I have been to two industry events in the United States. The first was one of the biannual Parts Unlimited, Parts Canada and Drag Specialties NVP New Product Expos (Louisville, Kentucky, in January) and the other one was the Motorcycle Industry Association (MIC) owned AIMExpo at Las Vegas - that being the only remaining 'independent' motorcycle industry trade show that the U.S. market now has.
It had started in Orlando, Florida, around a decade or so ago as an attempt to bring European style combination trade and consumer attendance to a show in the United States for the first time. After a couple of years at Columbus, Ohio, it has now dropped anchor at Las Vegas, cut down to three days only from four and abandoned the public element of the original concept.
The past 36 months have been torrid for events (of all kinds, in all markets), but in showing patience and evolving the new concept, the MIC appears now to have turned the show around and has it headed in the right direction.
It appears to have that all important 'Momentum' again. Although being in America's Southwest inevitably means the event will forever be skewed towards the broader powersports industry. But if that is what it takes to stabilise and rebuild it, then that's fine. Maybe at some stage the motorcycle expo market in the U.S. will be strong enough to additionally support an AIMExpo East. Taking the custom and broader motorcycle market back to Cincinnati - its spiritual home in show terms - in the heartland of America's on-highway dealer network, would be quite a "thing".
Meanwhile though, it looks like Las Vegas in February is going to be in the calendar for some years to come.
At AIMExpo a lot of credit for the show's turnaround has to go to Tucker Powersports whose leap of faith in agreeing to co-stage its annual dealer appreciation event there, rather than at its Fort Worth, Texas home, has done much to add to that sense of 'Momentum'.
As you'll see from the six-page vendor news-based review of the show in this edition, there is considerable European synergy with the event.
A large proportion of the booths were either European exhibitors, their North American subsidiaries or American importers/distributors showcasing the products they source from European manufacturers and brand owners.
My big AIMExpo take-away was the creativity, effort and budget that the MIC is ploughing into addressing two of the biggest issues that our industry now faces.
Namely, following the incredible success enjoyed for around 24 months through the pandemic, how do we now encourage as many as possible of those new adopters to stay with the PTW market and not let their newly bought bright and shiny machines either rot in the garage or flood the used market?
Second, how do we switch our mindsets back to addressing the still unresolved pre-pandemic issues that have not gone away - namely encouraging new generations of riders to embrace two wheels?
Kudos to the IVM and the others involved in lobbying for the importance of two wheels and affecting government licencing policy in Germany, because allowing access to PTWs earlier is now proven to work. The benefits are plain to see.
That, or something like it, needs to be replicated on an EU-wide basis, and with PTW use now, theoretically, being a favoured transport solution along the corridors of the Berlaymont, I'm sure ACEM and its members aren't asleep at that wheel!
