Motorcycles sales look grim
New registrations plummet by about 15%
MOTORCYCLE sales have plummeted in the past two years and sales prospects for this year appear grim.
Lachlan Harris, the national director of the Association of Motorcycle Importers and Distributors (Amid), confirmed yesterday that total new motorcycle registrations fell by about 15 percent to 23 304 units last year from 27 358 units in 2014.
Harris said this followed an about 20 percent year-on-year decline in new motorcycle registrations in 2014.
He said the prospects for the market this year were difficult to predict, but believed the market would be “lucky to hold even” at last year’s levels.
“The market is certainly battling despite motorcycles offering a solution to problems such as the rising cost of living and congestion,” he said.
Harris attributed the declining sales to the fact that the market was heavily dependent on motorcycles sold for recreational purposes.
“To pay between R180 000 and R200 000 for a toy and with the rand doing what it is doing, it’s not doing the market any favours. South Africa has just not made the transition to the commuter market, which it was in the 1980s. It is a leisure market. The scooter market in particular is battling to get traction in this market.”
Harris said sales of scooters under 500cc dropped by 17 percent last year and suspected the decline in sales by non-Amid scooter distributor members was even greater because Amid represented the more wellknown scooter brands.
He said motorcycle sales had also been negatively impacted by the implementa- tion of homologation rules in 2013, resulting in some of the bikes produced by the four major Japanese importers – Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Suzuki – not complying with the new rules. Harris said these manufacturers had a number of mid-segment bikes that were designed for the Asian market that they could no longer import into the local market.
“This was normally to do with emissions,” he said.
Harris said the depreciation of the rand was a concern, particularly as no bikes were manufactured locally and they all had to be imported.
He said Honda, which had the most comprehensive range in the local market, had the highest market share at 17.5 percent of the registration market last year followed by BMW at 12 percent.
Harris said scooter distributor Big Boy, which went into liquidation in 2014, leading to the brand being taken over by SA Motorcycles, had the thirdhighest market share at 12 percent and a few less registrations than BMW.
BMW Motorrad, the motor- cycle division of the BMW Group that has entered the below-500cc motorcycle market as part of an aggressive strategy to increase worldwide sales by 50 percent to 200 000 units by 2020, reported achieving record sales in South Africa and also growing its market share.
In South Africa, BMW Motorrad achieved record sales last year by increasing sales to customers by 12 percent to 3 250 units from 2 850 units in 2014.
Alexander Baraka, the general manager of BMW Motorrad South Africa, said these sales secured it the position of market leader for motorcycles over 500cc with a total market share of 35 percent compared with 30 percent in 2014, despite an 8 percent fall in this market.
BMW Motorrad globally last year achieved a new record sales high for the fifth year in succession by selling a total of 136 963 motorcycles and maxi scooters, an almost 11 percent growth on the 123 495 units sold in 2014. Stephan Schaller, the president of BMW Motorrad, said the 2015 sales figures showed that their motorcycle strategy was taking effect.
Motorcycle sales had also been negatively impacted by the implementation of homologation rules.