While October’s month-on-month registrations decline of almost 40% clearly signified an autumnal end to the core 2015 sales season, a hunky double-digit increase in year-on-year numbers was much brighter news.
Total registrations surged by 14.2% to 8504 units. Motorcycles were 19.5% up at 5608 units and scooters were close behind with an 18.8% rise to 2121 units. Only ongoing 50cc-sector woes — 19.7% down to 775 units — spoilt a clean sweep.Â
Usefully racking up dealer cashflow as winter approaches and money gets tighter, over-650cc tackle with plumper price tags grew by 21% to 2559 machines. Less of an earner but still very good business was the 51-125cc engine band, up by 20.2% to 4076 units.
Apart from the regular Adventure Sport cash cow, headed by Yamaha’s MT-09 Tracer and up by 39% to 1052 units, there were some late-season style aberrations. Custom actually beat Supersport with 791 units against 727. The new entry-level Harley-Davidson Street’s debut led that hitherto unlikely charge. And Sport/Tour, which is 4.4% down on a year-to-date basis, staged a sudden comeback — stacking on 43.5% to 287 units. More than a quarter of that was thanks to the category’s best-selling Kawasaki Z1000SX, which also shared stardom at the top of over-1000cc sales with BMW’s R1200GS
Honda inevitably hung on to numero-uno brand rankings status, up by 10.9% to 1365 units. But Yamaha in second spot closed the gap, posting a 29.9% increase at 1208 units. Honda’s market share declined marginally to 16%, against 16.5% a year earlier. Yamaha grabbed 14.2% of the action, with a substantial increase from 12.5%. Lexmoto, having homogenised its Chinese bike branding, took third place with 841 units and a 9.9% market share — comfortable ahead of two Japanese contenders.
Triumph was a distant fourth, nevertheless improving its October tally by 7.5%. Harley-Davidson in fifth wasn’t far behind, though, thanks to stronger 16.4% growth. There were only two losers in the top ten. Piaggio fell from sixth last year to eighth, some 3.2% down in unit terms. Surprisingly, KTM was also a dunce, two units short of being dead flat.
For the ten months of 2015 to date, overall registrations have risen by 12.4% to 102,229 units. Motorcycles lead the way with an 18.2% climb at 74,220 units. Scooters have notched up 5.9% to 19,994 units. Mopeds have sunk by 13.4% to 8015 units.