|
Motorcycle Sales Statistics
- 2005
Motorcycle and Scooter Sales Top 1 Million
by Rick K. for webBikeWorld
The total estimated U.S. motorcycle sales numbers for
2005 have recently been made available by the Motorcycle
Industry Council, and I've compiled some of the data in
a series of graphs (below).
Sales of motorcycles (including street, off-road and
dual-purpose) and scooters totaled 1,088,994 in 2005, up
from 965,399 in 2004, a rise of 4.5%. Overall
sales have been on a gradual increase since 1992 (see
chart).
webBikeWorld visitor "T.S." reminded us that the
numbers shown below only include MIC members, so the
actual numbers of motorcycles, scooters and ATVs sold in
the U.S.A. is probably higher.
That's especially so for scooters; there were dozens
of Chinese and Asian scooter manufacturers displaying
their products at the recent
2005 Powersports Dealer Expo, and as far as I can
tell, their sales totals are not included here.
That being said, there were a few surprises in these numbers, at least
for me. The scooter market is apparently thriving, probably
helped along by the increasing price of fuel. Although the
overall number of scooters sold is still a fraction of
street bike sales (about 8.8% in 2005), scooter sales
nevertheless rose 17.45% to 56,899 in 2005 from 48,445
in 2004.
The only category to show a decrease from 2004 was
off-road motorcycles, which dropped 4.37% in 2005 to
276,982 from 289,650 in 2004. This is probably due
to the increasing pressures from the Federal and State
governments to restrict off-road use, combined with the
never-ending encroachment of housing subdivisions on
rural land.
This theory also may hold for ATV sales, which
dropped 4.0% in 2005 from 2004 figures, to a total of
812,970 in 2004 to 780,433 in 2005.
But the biggest surprise, at least for me, was the
numbers reported for dual-purpose motorcycles.
Sales increased a whopping 29.26% in 2005, for a total
of 29,610 units sold over the 22,908 sold in 2004.
Perhaps this is partly cause by dedicated off-road bikes
being replaced by dual-purpose substitutes that can be
ridden on the street to get to an off-road venue?
There really aren't very many dual-purpose motorcycle
models compared to street bikes, and some of the
manufacturers have not updated their dual-purpose
motorcycle lineup in many years. Although these
numbers may also reflect the popularity of the big
"adventure touring" bikes like the BMW R1200GS, KTM 950
Adventure and others (although I'm not sure if these are
classified in the off-road category).
Street bike sales increased by 6.8% to 645,503 in
2005 from 604,396 in 2004. It's also interesting
to note that although most motorcycles were sold in
April (90,879) as might be expected, more scooters were
sold in September (9,472) than any other month.
This might have been caused by the spike in gas prices
during the fall of 2005; if so, it may presage
consumers' intentions if gas prices continue to
increase.
Overall I would say
that 2005 was a pretty good year, and we'll see how
things shape up in 2006, which I think may depend on the
uncertainty in fuel costs. Note: The source of
this information is the
Motorcycle
Industry Council (webBikeWorld is a member and we
received permission to reprint these figures in the
aggregate). |
