The National Motorcycle Dealers Association (NMDA) has commented on January 2017 motorcycle registrations data, which confirmed 4,884 bikes were registered, 15.6% less than the same period last year.
Stephen Latham, Head of the NMDA points out the decline is a direct result of the market’s December boom: “Following extremely high numbers of bikes registered in December (10,990) the slowdown seen in January was hugely anticipated. Compared with last year’s strong results, this shows a decline of -15.6% which is, surprisingly, reasonable.”
The scooters sector saw the biggest decline in January (-27.7%) with 417 units less than in 2016. All power/cc sectors were down, with the only exception of the large over 1000cc machines which grew by of 5.3%.
Latham continued, “An oversupply of run-out euro-3 motorcycles saturated the market towards the end of last year and it is now likely to affect the market in the upcoming months. In fact, many dealers and manufacturers seem to have pre-registered these Euro 3 machines due to restrictions on getting them derogated to be sold in the new year.”
The NMDA estimated that the genuine December market (excluding pre-registered bikes) was 12,301 machines. This estimation was calculated by looking at December and January in 2015/16 (11,013 units and adding yearly growth of 11.7% over the period.
Latham concluded, “The difference between the actual figure and our finding shows that there might be approximately 3,573 new pre-registered motorcycles out there looking for new owners. This is likely to hit the small motorcycles market in the next few months.“A further indication of this activity comes from Lexmoto. The brand was the best seller in December with 1,620 units registered, while it was relegated to position 10 in January with only 131 units sold. Honda, Yamaha and Triumph were back at their top three positions. Surprisingly, Suzuki did not appear in the top 10 brands meaning that there might be a few pre-registered bargains at your local Suzuki dealer.
“Despite this slowdown, there is still optimism amongst dealers, particularly, from the biggest established brands, as the opportunity to get out there and enjoy the open road beckons.”
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