Motorcycle market slides again in 2018 – Road Bikes

As has been the case in past years, LAMS bikes dominate the Top Ten in this category, but only three individual models recorded sales of more than 1,000 units. Compare that to 2017, when six models hit the 1,000 or greater mark.

For a bike that’s not particularly visible on the roads, Honda’s CMX500 LAMS cruiser continues to perform well, with sales up by more than 25 per cent last year, which combined with the CB125E to help Honda reach 7,019 sales in the road bike segment. That tied them with Harley-Davidson for the year.

Third best brand in the overall road segment was Yamaha with 5,702 sales, followed by Kawasaki with 4,396. Interestingly, BMW outsold Suzuki in the road segment with 2,835 sales compared to 2,686.

Husqvarna’s newcomers to the road bike market, the Vitpilen and Svartpilen, saw increased sales from the brand, while Victory still figured in the 2018 sales data, despite the brand being dead for two years now.

Harley-Davidson, as usual, dominated the cruiser subcategory with six of the ten best sellers. Of note here were the Street Bob, Fat Boy 114 and Sport Glide, which saw sales of 491, 453 and 312, respectively, but they were all outsold by Indian’s Scout with 496 sales for 2018.

Of the other road bike subcategories, Adventure Touring was largely stable, with Suzuki’s evergreen DR650E the top seller (574 sales), but BMW’s G 310 S was the biggest improver with 224 sales (+366.7 per cent).

The Touring subcategory saw Harley’s Street Glide Special as the best seller, despite lower sales, while the regular Street Glide also performed well. The Tri Glide Ultra trike saw 117 sales for the year (+234.4 per cent), with the other big mover in this subcategory being Honda’s latest GL1800 Goldwing with 119 sales (+116.4 per cent).

In Sport Touring and Super Sport, the LAMS models dominated, with a notable result being 164 sales for Suzuki’s GSX250R – a 124.6 per cent increase

Top 10 Road bikes – 2018

(sales increase/decrease compared to 2017)

1. Honda CB125E             1,113 (+58.8%)
2. Kawasaki Ninja 400       1,089 (NEW)
3. Yamaha MT-07L            1,002 (-2.9%)
4. Harley-Davidson XG500 944 (-20.1%)
   (Street 500)
5. Harley-Davidson FXBRS 794 (+291.1%)
   (Softail Breakout 114)
6. Honda CMX 500            746 (+25.4%)
7. Yamaha MT-09              738 (-7.6%)
8. Honda Grom                 715 (-34.2%)
9. Yamaha YZF-R3A         712 (-24.7%)
10. Honda NBC110*            687 (-52.5%)

*fleet motorcycle, included in national bike sales