Australia's Japan's fourth largest export market
Japan's annual motor industry report has been released, and it shows just how important Australia is to the motorcycle powerhouseAustralia has retained its mantle as Japan's fourth largest export market for motorcycles, according to the latest motor industry report from the industrial powerhouse.
In 2014, Japan exported 27,795 motorcycles into Australia, which only America (162,554), Germany (36,018) and France (47,833) could outdo. Behind Australia, Italy followed on 25,903 units, while other markets such as Canada (21,035) and the UK (10,248) were well behind.
Overall, Japan exported 466,000 motorcycles in 2014, which was an eight percent rise on the year before. Exports peaked at a whopping 2.69 million units way back in 1975 as the Japanese manufacturers began to gain a real stranglehold over their European and UK competitors.
As well as evaluation of export performance, the report also analysed production, sales and motorcycle usage in Japan. Production rose for the first time in four year to 597,000 units, of which 520,000 were over 50cc. Production peaked at 6.4 million units in 1980, and dropped below the one million mark for the first time in 2009 as the GFC really began to bite.
In terms of domestic sales (which the Japanese measure as bikes delivered to dealers rather than registrations), they dropped in 2014 for the first time in two years to 416,723 units, well below the 1980 peak of 2.37 million.
Finally, 11.69 million bikes were on Japanese streets in 2014, a slight drop on 2013. The usage spike was in 1985, when 18.18 million motorcycles were in action.
The motor report does not differentiate between manufacturers.
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