Indian Motorcycle’s parent company, Polaris, issued its 2021 Q1 earnings release on April 27, 2021. Overall, the company had good news to report across all its segments: off-road vehicles and snowmobiles, motorcycles, global adjacent markets, aftermarket parts, and boats. Let’s dive right into the motorcycle news, shall we?
Polaris includes both Indian Motorcycle and Slingshot within its “motorcycles” segment, and does not separate the two entities from one another when doing its reporting. This has been the case all along, since the advent of both brands under the greater Polaris umbrella.
With that in mind, motorcycle sales for Q1 of 2021 were up 31 percent over Q1 of 2020. Bear in mind that this time last year, the global pandemic had only just started to have an impact around the world. For the majority of Q1 2020, both supply and demand had yet to experience the harsh effects of the pandemic, and things were mostly business-as-usual until the very end of the period. That said, in terms of dollar values, Q1 2021 motorcycle sales for Polaris totaled $165.6 million, while Q1 2021 sales were $126.6 million.
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Gross profit from motorcycle sales was $8 million for Q1 2021, while Polaris saw a $1 million loss in motorcycle sales for Q1 of 2020. Any way you slice it, that’s a definite improvement in the company’s sales for 2021. Will this trend continue for Q2? Clearly, that’s yet to be determined since the Q1 report only just came out.
What about the North American market? Consumer retail sales for Indian Motorcycles in specific increased in the low-60 percent for Q1 of 2021. Overall, Polaris notes that the mid-to-heavyweight motorcycle segment where Indian Motorcycle sells its bikes was up mid-30 percent for the same time period. Widening the scope to include both Indian Motorcycle and Slingshot sales for Q1, sales in North America increased mid-70 percent.
Polaris weathered the challenges of 2020 fairly well, and seems to be off to a relatively strong start in 2021. How the rest of the year will turn out will, of course, remain to be seen—but this certainly isn’t a bad way to start things off.