Bike sales slide continues

The Australian motorcycle market is still in the doldrums, with official figures from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries showing sales of new bikes were down by 11.4 per cent overall over the first half of 2019, compared to the first half of last year.

A total of 42,457 new road bikes, off-road bikes, ATVs and scooters have been sold this year to the end of June, compared to a tally of 47,909 units for the previous corresponding period.

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The road-bike market is taking the brunt of the slide, with the 15, 668 examples sold equating with a fall of 17.7%, while ATVs are down by 13.9% and off-road bikes are down by 5.9%. Bucking the trend, and softening the overall percentage drop, is the scooter segment – a total of 2485 new scooters have been registered this year, which is an increase of 18.8%.

According to the FCAI's chief executive, Tony Weber, the results are a direct reflection of our presently tough market conditions.

"The first six months of 2019 have seen several events which have contributed to the sensitivity of the market, including environmental factors such as drought and flood, a tightening of financial lending, and the recent Federal election," he said.

In the road-bike market, Harley-Davidson has a leading market share of 18.7%, followed by Yamaha (17.5%) and Honda (17.4%).

In the off-road market it's Honda out in front with a 28.5% slice, followed by Yamaha (28.2%) and KTM (16.7%).

In the ATV/SSV niche it's Polaris in the top slot with a 24.7% market share, followed by Honda (24.7%) and Yamaha (18.8%).

And that leave scooters, where Honda holds a leading 39% share, followed by Vespa (15.25%), while Piaggio and Suzuki each hold 15.1%.