A snapshot of key motorcycle industry share performance at close of trading on Friday 24 July.
USA
Harley-Davidson announced its Q2 2026 financial results as the end of July approached, which are presented in greater detail on page 28 of this issue. Humourists could have referred to them as “The Good, Bad and Ugly”.
Quarterly net profit attributable to the Harley-Davidson Incorporated parent dropped by 26% to a mere £68.3m, but the HDMC manufacturing arm did much better, 6% up to £824.5m.
Chief executive Artie Starrs thought this was a reasonable excuse, on the basis of good first-half results and market share gains, to raise full-year guidance, thereby creating long-term value for shareholders, despite missing the company’s Q2 revenue target. Q2 worldwide Harley retail motorcycle sales had grown by precisely 1%.
Harley’s LiveWire electric bike spin-off didn’t even figure in the results. Polaris Inc anticipated upbeat Q2 results from its ORV business, the news encouraging its share price to briefly break through the $74 barrier for the first time this year.
EUROPE
Bajaj Mobility has released some fairly circumspect results flagging up financial recovery, backed up by growing motorcycle sales worldwide emanating from its revived Austrian manufacturing base, that don’t include the high-volume sales of its parental Bajaj Auto operations in India. However, its very limited free-float stock has still crept up only marginally.
Piaggio will shortly reveal Q2 data, flagging up a minuscule rise in its share price. BMW is expected to deliver a disappointing Q2 performance in early August. Ducati’s parent company Volkswagen is planning to cut its production capacity in Europe by 500,000 vehicles, adapting to lower demand, and the group is looking at ending production at four factories in Germany. VW Group chief executive Oliver Blume has underlined his determination to cut costs and potentially up to 100,000 jobs despite opposition from the manufacturer’s supervisory board. VW has apparently already laid out plans to get rid of up to 50,000 staff centred around its main Wolfsburg plant and the Audi Group base in Ingolstadt. Quite what the impact will be on Audi’s Brand Group Progressive, which also includes motorcycle manufacturer Ducati, Bentley and Lamborghini, is unclear. Ducati has already denied that its business is up for sale. Analysts were not impressed.
JAPAN
Japanese finance minister Satsuki Katayama warned markets that authorities stood ready to take “appropriate and bold action” as the latest flare-up in the Iran war pushed the yen under ¥163 to the US dollar for the first time in almost 40 years. In parallel, a long-running sell-off in Japanese government bonds, owing to rising interest rates, huge fiscal stimulis and fears of inflation, has sent 10-year bond yields above 2.5% for the first time this century. To suggest Japanese investors were in panic mode was an understatement. But remarkably, most biker stocks remained robust against this background. Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki shares all continue to add value. Only Kawasaki took a recent spanking.
INDIA
TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto are very much the latest stars of India’s vast motorcycle manufacturing show. TVS has just unveiled the first of two much cheaper Norton Atlas models, to sit alongside the Norton revival’s minted Manx R superbike. For some bizarre reason, the pre-production world launch took place in Iceland and is presumably targeting a global market. Whether finished steed variations, selling for around £10,000, will be built in India or the environs of Birmingham is not known. Bajaj is meanwhile basking in the ongoing turnaround of its now wholly-owned ex-KTM business, and its Indian share price has blossomed accordingly.
CHINA
The proliferation of increasingly high-quality Chinese motorcycles, built specifically for export into European and other developed markets, is now boosting most of the active players’ prosperity, as reflected by their domestic share prices in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. Japanese domination may soon be a thing of the past.