Motorcycle Sales On the Rise
Don't worry, this hasn't turned into BikeAdvice yet (though thats coming soon), but we love cars, we really do, and its hard to love cars, and not love bikes, unfortunately though, acceptance of my own self control has stopped me from ever owning a bike, but I seem to be part of an increasing minority as more and more commuters and lifestyle enthusiasts give up cars and turn to two wheels.
Figures published by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) show a fourth consecutive year of growth for motorcycle sales, with 2006 hitting an all time record of 119, 210 bike sold, an increase of 16,969 or 16.6 per cent on the previous record set in 2005.
Whats more interesting though is that for the first time in more than 10 years road-bikes were driving (or riding) the sales high with 52,944 sales, which is nearly 30% increase over 2005. But even the off-road road bike market increased 9.5 per cent over 2005.
But hang on, why are all these people buying bikes? Well lets get our definition straight, the FCAI is actually counting scooters as a bike as well and hence the number of road "bikes" has increased as a result:
"The tipping of the balance in favour of road bikes is the combined result of the scooter boom and the increasing numbers of weekend recreational riders," said the chief executive of the FCAI, Peter Sturrock.
In 2006 a record 14,505 (an increase of 4171 or 43.0 per cent) gave in their dignity and resorted to a Scooter, okay now I am being harsh, but if your going to ride a scooter, please wear a shirt, and remember, if your a guy, a pink shirt on a yellow scooter might make you stand out on the road, but it sure as hell won't get you many compliments!
But its true, more and more people are buying Scooters, and for the 4th year in a row, they were the highest-selling category on the road-bike market. Whilst Cruiser bike sales grew by 2900 or 36.3 per cent to 10,925 to displace Super Sports (7685) as the second largest category of road bikes.
"For the past two decades the trend in recreational motorcycling has been towards dirt bikes, and while the dirt bike scene continues to grow, there is now an even stronger trend towards the lifestyle associated with traditional Cruiser-style road bikes, especially amongst the baby-boomer generation." said Mr Sturrock.
So who sells more bikes than anyone else? Honda of course, Honda sold 30,865 bikes followed by Yamaha with 27,800 and Suzuki with 14,815. Honda led the road bike market with 10,291 sales from Yamaha with 6384 and third was Suzuki with 5957 just ahead of Harley-Davidson with 5686. However Yamaha led the off-road market with 16,416 sales closely followed by Honda with 15,240 and Suzuki third with 5875 sales.
0
