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| Northern Monkey |
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Northern Monkey
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| Rogerborg |
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Rogerborg
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 Posted: 10:24 - 14 Feb 2014  Post subject: |
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Not bad. Pretty much everything is up, but January is a slow month so it's not huge in absolute terms.
How did Honda "register" 55 NC750Xs in January when it wasn't available until February? 
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GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike |
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| c-m |
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c-m
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| Posted: 12:17 - 14 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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I guess Suzuki's offer expired. They've fallen off the charts again.
Something is seriously wrong at Suzuki. If only they'd put me in charge  |
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bamt
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c-m
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| Rogerborg |
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Rogerborg
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| Posted: 15:39 - 14 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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| c-m wrote: | I guess Suzuki's offer expired. They've fallen off the charts again.
Something is seriously wrong at Suzuki. If only they'd put me in charge |
Seriously, what would you do?
Their sales are circling the drain, and their models are wrinkly and saggy. The GSV650 (Gladius) is £800 more than the brand new, lighter, gruntier, more powerful MT-07, and the venerable (ancient) SV650S is only £200 less. They made one strong showing last year on the back of a bonanza giveaway on the V-Strom 650, but when they don't have a craaaaazy sale on, they shift next to nothing, sometimes not even one new bike per dealer per month.
If the V-Strom 1000 doesn't tap into some hypothetical sweet spot then god knows what they can try next. I'd be willing to bet that it won't because I agree that there is no market for big adventure bikes that don't come with an R1200GS badge on them.
____________________
Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike |
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Aff
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| Northern Monkey |
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Northern Monkey
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Posted: 16:16 - 14 Feb 2014  Post subject: |
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| Rogerborg wrote: | | c-m wrote: | I guess Suzuki's offer expired. They've fallen off the charts again.
Something is seriously wrong at Suzuki. If only they'd put me in charge |
Seriously, what would you do?
Their sales are circling the drain, and their models are wrinkly and saggy. The GSV650 (Gladius) is £800 more than the brand new, lighter, gruntier, more powerful MT-07, and the venerable (ancient) SV650S is only £200 less. They made one strong showing last year on the back of a bonanza giveaway on the V-Strom 650, but when they don't have a craaaaazy sale on, they shift next to nothing, sometimes not even one new bike per dealer per month.
If the V-Strom 1000 doesn't tap into some hypothetical sweet spot then god knows what they can try next. I'd be willing to bet that it won't because I agree that there is no market for big adventure bikes that don't come with an R1200GS badge on them. |
They seem to have a new £500 off offer on a few models, including the wee-strom |
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| c-m |
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c-m
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Posted: 17:53 - 14 Feb 2014  Post subject: |
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| Rogerborg wrote: |
Seriously, what would you do?
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Probably not a lot as I imagine the UK or even the European director has little say in the model lineup.
Now if I was in charge of Suzuki motorcycles full stop, I'd try the following.
Produce a credible YBR125, CBF125 challenger. The DR125 and the VanVan just too specific and won't appeal to many who prefer more mainstream models.
Suzuki are a member of Geton. I'd probably try to introduce some kind of scheme, whereby those buying a new Suzuki 125 bike get a certain amount off their next larger cc Suzuki. It'd need to be valid for 36 months from the date of purchase to be useful under the new test rules.
These 'learners/A1' would also be invited to test ride (would have to be off road somewhere due to licence issues) the next model up Suzuki for free. That would arguably help to encourage them to get on with taking their net test, and keep the Suzuki brand in their mind.
It's pretty daunting as a leaner or lower category licence holder to go into a dealership and start asking about and trying to test bikes.
I'd drop the hideous SFV650 and position the basic V-strom 650 as GS650 competitor on price. The adventure version would be far more adventure orientated than it is at present. Think modern Africa Twin.
Suzuki don't currently have a 35kw A2 compatible motorcycle, so I'd look at doing something there.
How much does motorcycle training cost vs. the discounts offered by Suzuki? I know the past they've offered £500 cashback. Perhaps an annual scheme where by if you commit to new bike Suzuki pay your lessons/test.
The fact that Suzuki don't make the top 10 unless there is an offer or sale suggests that people don't value their proposition. Money needs to be invested in the brand or the prices need to come down, and or extras offered, e.g longer warranty, breakdown cover etc..
Anyway, these are just a few off the top my head. If might be money is too tight, or they'd be expensive to implement. Without budgets being set I don't know what's possible.
Anyone else want to take a stab at it? |
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mentalboy
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Rogerborg
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| Posted: 21:49 - 14 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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We don't live in the world though. This is Britain. 
Actually, world wide, by volume, we'd be looking at the likes of Qingqi, Lifan and Zongshen.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike |
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mentalboy
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| Posted: 21:59 - 14 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Not quite the world but gives the big Jap four's worldwide sales. Interestingly Harley sells nearly twice that of Honda, unfortunately no Chinese figures
EDIT:
tidbit includes this: 'From January to August, 9,003,600 motorcycles were sold in the Chinese domestic market, with a year-on-year decrease of 6.36%.' 
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Last edited by mentalboy on 22:09 - 14 Feb 2014; edited 1 time in total |
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slowlydoesit
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| Posted: 00:01 - 15 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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| Rogerborg wrote: | Actually, world wide, by volume, we'd be looking at the likes of Qingqi, Lifan and Zongshen. |
Not quite. China's motorcycle market is enormous, with roughly 23 million units manufactured in 2013 of which 9 million plus were exported. It would therefore seem reasonable to assume that Chinese suppliers are the largest globally, but that's not the case. Because the Chinese market is highly fragmented and because none of the Chinese supplier are at this point very large outside China, even the largest of them - Haojue/Dachangjiang - is a fraction of the size of Honda or Yamaha.
Honda is producing about 9.5 million bikes per year of all kinds, while Haojue - the largest Chinese supplier - is manufacturing slightly over 2 million units. Next largest (in China) is Longxin and Lifan is third. Zhongshen is about fifth, if I remember correctly. I don't think Qingqi is even in the top 10. Still, the top five are all making a million bikes per year or more. As mentioned above, exports from China account for a little more than 9 million units, although this does include exports from Japanese manufacturers in China.
Note that the Japanese bike suppliers in China do not have a free rein; they have been forced to partner with local suppliers and the market has been a hostile one. For that reason the Japanese bike suppliers do not have the very high market shares they have been able to achieve in other emerging markets like India, Thailand, Indonesia or South America.
Just for reference, Yamaha's global bike production stood at around 6 million units in 2013. Note the size of the gap between Honda/Yamaha and the other two Japanese suppliers: Suzuki's global output is around 2.3 million. Kawasaki is hard to say because it lumps in jetskis and similar products but I would estimate around 500,000 units. Here Rogerborg's comments are closer to the mark: Haojue is about as large as Suzuki in terms of units (though it will still very far behind in terms of revenue). But still, parity on a volume basis is quite impressive.
Last edited by slowlydoesit on 18:37 - 15 Feb 2014; edited 1 time in total |
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| Posted: 12:15 - 15 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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| Polarbear wrote: | Sorry should have read I can't see Harley etc. AHEAD of the the big four in world wide bike sales but when I talk about bikes I sort of forget in pure unit numbers the far east commuters will be immense. |
You're quite right, they're all quite small. Ducati makes about 40k bikes a year, HD about 250k, BMW about 120k. Triumph isn't listed so disclosure is limited but press reports suggest a little more than 50k per year.
However, we're not comparing apples to apples. I don't think any of the above sell anything with a capacity of less than 600cc, whereas Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki are active in the small bike market. The bulk of volume sales will be in those small bike areas, such as Asia. For example Honda sold 9.5m bikes in 2012, of which 7m bikes were sold in Asia and 1.6m in Brazil and those would overwhelmingly have been small bikes.
If you subtract those figures from the total 9.5m and allow for scooters and small bikes sold in Europe you can see that Honda's big bike sales are probably less than a million a year. That's not surprising. Something like the CBR100RR sells - my estimate - 120-180 units a month in the UK, so 1500-2000 a year. Worldwide maybe what, 20-30k units? I'm erring on the side of caution here, so the numbers could be higher, but it's not going to be 150k or 200k units. Smaller, cheaper bikes like the CBR500 will of course sell higher volumes.
So if we assume that only a tiny fraction of the output of the Japanese big three is large bikes it would not be unreasonable to assume that in specific regions and at specific engine sizes the four non-Japanese marques mentioned above might have high market shares and dominant product positions. For example in the UK BMW have taken the top spot in the "Tourers" category for all but 3 of the 50 months since January 2010. |
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 11 years, 338 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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