Harley's Profits Are Way Down Over Last Year's

North American sales are up for Harley-Davidson, and Latin American sales are slightly up. But EMEA and Asia Pacific sales were down year on year. And profits are worse.

Photo by: Harley-Davidson

By: Janaki Jitchotvisut

May 6, at 9:16am ET

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Harley-Davidson's Q1 2026 financial results are out, and there's both good and bad news to report. Firstly, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: Consolidated operating income, which is most commonly defined as the core profits of a business, is down 85% in Q1 of 2026, as compared to Q1 of 2025.

Since it's easy to mislead with percentages, here's what that means in actual numbers. In Q1 of 2025, the Motor Company reported an operating income of $160 million USD. But in Q1 of 2026, it's reporting an operating income of just $23 million, representing that 85% drop mentioned previously.

The reasons given for this drop are, and I quote, "a decline of 84 percent at Harley-Davidson Motor Company (that's the core combustion-engined motorcycle business, not to be confused with the EV business side of LiveWire and StaCyc) and a decline of 65 percent at Harley-Davidson Financial Services."

While the financial health of a motorcycle manufacturer matters in terms of a broader picture of the industry, we're called RideApart. So, that means we also care about motorcycle sales in specific. How are those doing for the MoCo, you might wonder?

Overall, for Q1 of 2026, motorcycle sales worldwide were up 8% over Q1 of 2025. In numbers, they went from 31,000 bikes sold in Q1 of 2025 to 33,500 sold in Q1 of 2026. As for a regional breakdown, sales in North America rose by 14% (from 20,900 in Q1 2025 to 23,800 in Q1 2026), and by 21% in Latin America (from 600 in Q1 2025 to 700 in Q1 2026). However, they're down by 3% in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), as they went from 5,200 in Q1 2025 to 5,000 in Q1 2026. In the Asia Pacific reason, they're down by 9%, going from 4,400 in Q1 2025 to 4,000 in Q1 2026.

What about LiveWire? We'll get into that in more detail in a separate piece, because it's worth talking about. But since it's also part of the greater Harley-Davidson, Inc. picture, it's worth mentioning that while it's still facing a quarterly operating loss, that amount is decreasing year-on-year. In Q1 of 2025, LiveWire posted a loss of $20 million USD. But in Q1 of 2026, that loss figure was only $18 million. Revenues also improved YoY, going from $3M in Q1 of 2025 to $5M in Q1 of 2026, which represents an 87% revenue increase.

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