BMW Motorrad has set some ambitious sales goals, and by the end of the year will have launched nine new models.
Stephan Schaller, President of BMW Motorrad, says the company wants to be selling 200,000 units a year by 2020. That’s a significant increase on its current production levels of around 116,000 per year.
He says the overall motorcycle market is flat and the way to increase sales is by releasing new models.
Four years ago, BMW re-evaluated its model line up and looked at possible new market segments as well as expanding it sales network into new countries. The urban and commuter markets were recognised as having high growth potential for BMW.
This year BMW launched two new scooters – the C650 Sport and C650 GT – which accounted for a significant part of the company’s sales growth, especially in Europe.
The “Heritage” segment of the market is also very promising and the R nineT and its family has been very successful in that market.
The move into the small capacity sector with the G310 has also been a sales success.
Stephan Schaller says that while it is not a strategy to have large volumes in the small capacity segment, the G310 is attracting new customers to the brand because it is BMW quality at an affordable price, and it will sell well in countries such as Brazil and China.
Despite its success in the small capacity market, BMW will remain focussed on bikes above 500cc and has no plans to produce anything around 125cc.
So what’s to come from BMW?
- The new R nineT Scrambler will be released in the final quarter of the year.
- Another new R nineT model will also be unveiled at the Milan show in November.
- The G310R is set to be released in the next few months.
- The maxi-scooter range will be expanded with lower capacity models.
One area BMW is ruling out is MotoGP. The company has no plans to enter MotoGP because it doesn’t help in selling bikes, but Shaller says BMW will “always try to build the best superbikes that money can buy.”