Total motorcycle sales are up, Honda is back on top and Yamaha has continued its domination of the off road market.
That’s the good news in the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries quarterly report on motorcycle sales that was released this week.
Overall sales were up by 1.6% compared to the same period of 2015, and the road, off-road and ATV markets all showed good growth figures of at least 2.7% each.
On the other hand, scooter sales continue to decline, dropping 19.3% compared to this time last year.
Of the drastically weakening market, Piaggio still has 22.2% market share, but the drop would no doubt be a worry to most scooter importers.
Honda recorded it’s highest March sales figures ever, boosted by the sale of 863 Honda NBC110’s – the updated version of the CT110 postie bike.
It seems Australia Post placed a large order for the bikes and, to be fair to the other manufacturers, that would have swayed the results in Honda’s favour.
The humble Postie bike did, as a result, top the list of the best selling bikes overall and the road bike segment.
That bumped the Kawasaki Ninja 300 from it’s normal spot at number 1.
Honda now has 20.5% of the road bike market.
Harley-Davidson, who claimed the title of the top selling road bike brand last year, was a close second with 19.7% of the market.
Yamaha’s perennial off-road favourite, the WR450F, was the top selling off-road machine by far.
The YZ450F and YZ250F were the top selling motocross machines, building Yamaha’s dominance in that market sector.
As expected, the new Africa Twin has been sales success for Honda as well. It was the number 1 selling adventure bike.
The adventure bike market continues to grow strongly, and sales of the BMW G 650 GS increased noticeably as well.