Europe’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, KTM Industries, has revealed an eighth-consecutive annual record of rising revenue, profit and sales volume in preliminary full-year results for 2018. BDN financial editor Roger Willis reports.
Turnover was 1.7% up to £1.356bn. Operating profit rose by 21.5% to £140m, with an adjusted operating margin of 8.6%. Pre-tax profit reached £124.6m, a 22.4% improvement.
Volume grew by 9.7% to a total of 261,454 motorcycles. The KTM brand accounted for 212,899 of these, while Husqvarna added 48,555. The company also claimed disproportionately large market-share gains on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, where total bike sales grew by about 8% last year, KTM brands increased their registrations by 21.5% — corresponding to a market share of 11.7%. And in the declining US market, where overall numbers fell by 2.3%, KTM bucked that trend by putting on 8.5% and lifting share to 8.9%.
These successes were partly attributed to launches of the new KTM Duke 790, plus Husqvarna’s Svartpilen and Vitpilen street models.
During 2019, KTM Industries intends to shift production of smaller-capacity Husqvarna road bikes to its Indian manufacturing partner Bajaj — which already makes all the smaller KTM-branded road kit — to cut costs. And it has set a global sales target of 400,000 motorcycles annually by 2022.
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