3 August 2005
Motorcycle sales in Australia grew strongly in the first six months of 2005, according to official industry sales figures released today.
The overall market increased by 8.3 per cent, compared to the same period in 2004.
The Chief Executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), Mr Peter Sturrock, said the motorcycle market grew in all three segments: road, off-road and all-terrain vehicles (ATV).
“Overall motorcycle sales are up by 3331 units to 43,581 year-to-date June 2005,” said Peter Sturrock.
“The strongest growth was in the road bike market, at 13.3 per cent, closely followed by the ATV market at 11.5 per cent.”
The national off-road motorcycle market grew by 3.1 per cent.
“Off-road is still the largest market, with 19,273 motorcycles sold in the first six months of 2005,” said Mr Sturrock.
“There were 16,919 road bike sales nationally and 7389 ATV sales.”
“Yamaha was number one manufacturer for the first half of 2005, with 11,122 motorcycles sold, whilst Honda’s 10,864 sales gave it second place.”
Yamaha was the nation’s market leader in off-road bikes.
However, the company’s best segment growth YTD June 2005 was in road bike sales of 2249 bikes, an increase of 25.6 per cent.
Honda continues to sell the most road bikes (2720 for the period) and ATVs (2251) in Australia.
“Specialist ATV manufacturer Polaris enjoyed the next highest sales growth of the majors, with a 43.4 per cent increase on its first-half 2004 result to 1170 machines,” said Mr Sturrock.
Kawasaki (14.0 per cent sales growth), Yamaha (11.3 per cent) and Suzuki (9.9 per cent) all bettered the overall industry sales growth figure for the period.
Harley-Davidson was another major to increase sales compared to the first half 2004 – by 5.8 per cent to 2029 bikes.
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Sheena Ireland, Communications Manager
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