Motorcycle sales reach seven-year high

A surge in consumer activity during the final quarter of 2016 generated a strong finish to the sales year for Australia’s new motorcycle market, with year-on-year growth of 6.6 per cent.

Australia’s motorcycle, ATV and scooter sales reached a total of 114,783 units in 2016 — an increase of 7073 over 2015.

It is the fifth highest sales result in the industry’s history, and the strongest result since 2009.

Honda was the largest selling brand again, holding 22.9 per cent (26,276 units) of the total motorcycle, ATV and scooter market, ahead of Yamaha (21.7), Kawasaki (9.2), Harley-Davidson (9.0) Suzuki (8.6), KTM (7.6), Polaris (5.3), BMW (2.9), Triumph (2.7), BRP (2.2) and Ducati (1.8).

Road bike sales were again healthy, increasing 5.3 per cent over 2015 and accounting for 41.6 per cent of the total market. Australians rode home with a total of 47,753 new road bikes in 2016.

Harley-Davidson took out the top sales position in the road bike category, selling 10,282 units to claim a leading segment share of 21.5 per cent. Honda was the second highest selling brand in this category, with 20.2 per cent of national road bike sales (9651). Honda was followed by Yamaha with 16.3 per cent (7768), Kawasaki with 10.1 per cent (4798) and BMW with 6.7 per cent (3178).

Off-road motorcycle purchases accounted for almost 35 per cent of total market with 39,710 sales. The popularity of this segment grew at a slightly higher rate than that of road bikes in 2016, with the 39,710 off-road sales for 2016 representing a 6.3 per cent increase on 2015.

Yamaha again led the market for off-road motorcycles, selling 30.5 per cent (12,090) of the total number sold in this segment. Yamaha was followed by Honda with 24.8 per cent (9848 sales), KTM with 17.7 per cent (7023), Kawasaki with 11.0 per cent (4382) and Suzuki with 10.3 per cent (4081).

The ATV market grew by a solid 14.4 per cent over 2015, with a total of 22,834 sold nationally in 2016. ATV sales represented 19.9 per cent of the total motorcycle market.

Polaris was the leading ATV brand with a 26.4 per cent share, or 6037 sales. Honda was second with 25.5 per cent (5832 sales), Yamaha was third with 20.5 per cent (4692), BRP fourth with 11.1 per cent (2524) and Suzuki fifth with 10.2 per cent (2337).

Scooters continued their decline in popularity with total sales in this segment of 4486, down 11.0 per cent on 2015.

Italian-based manufacturer Piaggio remained the segment leader market with a 24 per cent share (1075 sales), followed by the Piaggio-owned Vespa with 21.8 per cent (977), Honda third with 21.1 per cent (945), Suzuki fourth with 8.5 per cent (382) and Aprilia fifth with 8.3 per cent (373). Scooter sales accounted for 3.9 per cent of the total 2016 motorcycle market.

2016 MARKET SUMMARY REPORT

As for individual models, five of the top 10 sellers were from the 'funbike' category – Honda's CRF50F leading the way – while Harley-Davidson's Street 500 (pictured) was the biggest selling road-registerable bike – excluding Honda's NBC110 which is sold to Australia Post.

Other road bikes in the overall top 10 were the Yamaha YZF-R3 and the Harley-Davidson Softail Breakout (FXSB), while Yamaha's perennial big seller, the WR450F enduro bike, also made it in.

For the first time in many years, the Kawasaki Ninja 250/300 didn't make the overall top 10 – and was only the sixth biggest selling roadbike after the NBC110, Street 500, YZF-R3, Softail Breakout and Yamaha MT-07L (as in LAMS).

The biggest selling bikes across all the categories in 2016 were:

2016 INDIVIDUAL SALES REPORT