There’s plenty of reason to be concerned about the motorcycle industry worldwide. New motorcycle sales, after all, are what keep the industry going, growing, and changing. Sales in the U.S. haven’t been looking great for awhile now—but this country doesn’t exist in a bubble. Motorcycle manufacturers are likely relieved that things elsewhere aren’t looking so grim—particularly in Europe. As we’ve been noting for some time now, European sales just keep getting better.
European Sales Keep Looking Up:
Overall, Europe saw sales over the first eleven months of 2019 increase by an astonishing 64 percent, according to Motorcycles Data. That’s a total including motorcycles and scooters of all kinds and displacements as well as electric models. Interestingly, NIU, maker of the RQi-GT that Dustin told you about in January 2020, already holds a 26.7 percent market share across the continent.
France is currently the largest motorcycle market in Europe, and saw a 15.7 percent increase in new motorbike sales for 2019. That’s the highest level of sales that country has seen since 2012, so it’s definitely a trend in the right direction. Both gas-powered and electric motorbikes have shown growth, and electrics in particular rose 35 percent year-on-year within France’s borders.
Italy is the second-largest market in Europe, and Italian market growth has been positive for five years in a row. The country ended 2019 with five percent growth over 2018. Spain is the continent’s third-strongest motorcycle market, where growth has been positive for six years in a row. Overall, it showed an 11 percent increase at the end of 2019 over 2018’s sales.
Rounding out the top four European markets, Germany had a 2019 that was mostly positive, although numbers briefly slipped into the negative in Q3. Still, overall, new motorcycle sales for 2019 rose by five percent. In fifth place is Turkey, which saw a shrinking motorcycle market, but still managed to stay just ahead of the United Kingdom in sixth place. According to Motorcycles Data, Brexit has had a chilling effect on the UK economy in general, and has resulted in lower motorcycle sales for the past three years—a trend that continued in 2019.
Source: Motorcycles Data