For the third month in a row, sales of new motorcycles have risen in the UK when compared with the same period of 2017.
Despite the dismal weather, bike sales in March rose by 4.7% overall, with larger capacity scooters and motorcycles up a reasonably healthy 6.7%.
In percentage terms, the strongest growth came in the Custom segment of the market which was up 22.3% on March last year. New scooter sales were also up 14.2%, Naked bikes by 8%, Touring bikes by 6.1% and Supersports by 5.4%. There was also modest growth in the already strong Adventure Bike segment, up 3.1% for the month. There were drops in the registrations of new Sport Touring and and Trail/Enduro machines, down -8.9% and -9.5% respectively.
Honda were once again the UK’s top selling new motorcycle brand, with their dealers waving goodbye to 2,869 new bikes in March 2018. Yamaha normally take 2nd spot in the manufacturer table, but after a strong month for both BMW (1,938 units) and Kawasaki (1,659 units) they have been relegated to 4th place selling 1,534 new bikes. They were followed closely by Triumph (1,348), Suzuki (1,060) and Harley-Davidson (821).
March’s top selling brand new bike was BMW’s world beating R1200 GS, with 405 of them being sold to riders across the country.
The most popular models by style were as follows:
- Adventure Sport – BMW R1200 GS
- Custom – Honda CMX500 Rebel
- Naked – Kawasaki X900 RS
- Scooter – Honda NSC 110 WH
- Sport Touring – Kawasaki Z1000 SX
- Supersport – Honda CBR650F
- Touring – BMW R1200RT
- Trail & Enduro – Honda CRF250 LA
Although figures still lag behind those seen in early 2016, three positive months of back-to-back growth are surely helping to inject some positivity into the market despite the gloomy weather.
With Easter now out of the way, and the riding season well and truly upon us, let’s see if April has more good news in store!
