Why North America doesn't matter

Rather, why it doesn't matter to Suzuki, and to a lesser extent, Honda, and Yamaha. Not sure about Kawasaki, who sell motorcycles almost as a vanity project alongside their ship, train and heavy equipment businesses.

North America and Europe still matter a great deal to Ducati, Triumph, Aprilia, Guzzi, BMW, KTM et al. Just because the volume numbers are (a lot) smaller doesn't mean there isn't a viable business still there for big, relatively expensive motorcycles. One thing that has flipped is Europe seems to be leading the priority list, with North America a solid second...
 
India, is a price driven market and product configuration matches that parameter.
Not saying that you cannot buy big, expensive cars/bikes with more geegaws, but the volume sellers match the "value" segment.
 
India , arguably one of the largest markerts in the world , also has enormous tariffs on importation of bikes. You pretty much have to manufacture there to be close to selling prices of a local brand.
 
Priller said:
Rather, why it doesn't matter to Suzuki, and to a lesser extent, Honda, and Yamaha. Not sure about Kawasaki, who sell motorcycles almost as a vanity project alongside their ship, train and heavy equipment businesses.

North America and Europe still matter a great deal to Ducati, Triumph, Aprilia, Guzzi, BMW, KTM et al. Just because the volume numbers are (a lot) smaller doesn't mean there isn't a viable business still there for big, relatively expensive motorcycles. One thing that has flipped is Europe seems to be leading the priority list, with North America a solid second...
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to continue with this train of thought, for the japanese it seems, motorcycles seem much more like an afterthought at times(with some exceptions).

Ducati on the other hand, aint building no outboard motors or lawn mowers.
 
bigpoppa said:
to continue with this train of thought, for the japanese it seems, motorcycles seem much more like an afterthought at times(with some exceptions).

Ducati on the other hand, aint building no outboard motors or lawn mowers.
Click to expand...
But Ducati is (now) owned by VW/Audi, which may have its own special reasons for keeping it viable as a prestige brand.
The amount of money spent in Moto-GP and WSBK is brutal, likely a lot of that is internally absorbed as development costs, although its tough to know how much translates into street product.
 
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TK4 said:
But Ducati is (now) owned by Audi, which may have its own special reasons for keeping it viable as a prestige brand.
The amount of money spent in Moto-GP and WSBK is brutal, likely a lot of that is internally absorbed as development costs, although its tough to know how much translates into street product.
Click to expand...
Same I suppose could be said for Aprilia and KTM.
 
bigpoppa said:
to continue with this train of thought, for the japanese it seems, motorcycles seem much more like an afterthought at times(with some exceptions).

Ducati on the other hand, aint building no outboard motors or lawn mowers.
Click to expand...

TK4 said:
But Ducati is (now) owned by VW/Audi, which may have its own special reasons for keeping it viable as a prestige brand.
The amount of money spent in Moto-GP and WSBK is brutal, likely a lot of that is internally absorbed as development costs, although its tough to know how much translates into street product.
Click to expand...

I think it's also a case of brand cachet. When the 2008 financial crisis hit and killed cheap lending (for the time being), it was the Japanese brands that got hit hardest. Up to that point, they'd been able to work on volume sales to keep their prices lower than the Euro competition, and that paid for relentless development. This meant you generally got a better bike for less, particularly as most Euro brands were in various stages of mismanaged disrepair (Ducati, Aprilia) or still finding their feet as relatively new to market (Triumph, KTM).

After volumes dropped, prices had to rise. What the Japanese brands discovered is that the low prices of before had a negative blowback: their bikes weren't considered 'luxury' enough to justify the prices that the Euro brands could command. People would pay a premium to wear a Ducati/BMW/Triumph badge, but they wouldn't for a Yamaha, let alone a Suzuki. Even sturdy Honda, with their best-in-class engineering, build quality, and reliability, was relegated to also-ran status.

To add insult to injury, the previously mismanaged Italian brands got much better organised and were funded by deep-pocketed owners in Audi/VW and Piaggio, while KTM exploded out of just being a dirt-oriented brand and Triumph got rich selling hipster bikes to riders smart enough not to try and home brew a CB400 calamity. BMW kept on BMWing, leveraging the aspirational branding of their cars into the bike market. They also moved away from 'good but quirky' (funky front ends, weird looks, heavy and slow) into dominating the massively profitable ADV market as well as building a superbike that rendered anything Japanese 'slow' overnight.

All this has left the big four with few profitable options in Western markets. Can't go volume, can't charge as much. The only choice left is to iterate slowly, maximise tooling value, and hope that eventually cheap bikes from China make them appealing enough to be able to charge European margins. They did themselves no favours by being well behind the curve on electronic trickery, which appealed most to younger buyers. Considering Japan's reputation as technological leaders, this was ironic.

It'll be interesting to see how it evolves. CFMoto is coming fast, and may eventually push Suzuki out as the value brand. Kawasaki and Yamaha are both part of extremely diversified businesses, and I think Honda will never abandon big motorcycles as long as the car division is profitable. As much as it's not the same company since the passing of Soichiro, motorcycles are in their DNA.
 
Priller said:
I think it's also a case of brand cachet. When the 2008 financial crisis hit and killed cheap lending (for the time being), it was the Japanese brands that got hit hardest. Up to that point, they'd been able to work on volume sales to keep their prices lower than the Euro competition, and that paid for relentless development. This meant you generally got a better bike for less, particularly as most Euro brands were in various stages of mismanaged disrepair (Ducati, Aprilia) or still finding their feet as relatively new to market (Triumph, KTM).

After volumes dropped, prices had to rise. What the Japanese brands discovered is that the low prices of before had a negative blowback: their bikes weren't considered 'luxury' enough to justify the prices that the Euro brands could command. People would pay a premium to wear a Ducati/BMW/Triumph badge, but they wouldn't for a Yamaha, let alone a Suzuki. Even sturdy Honda, with their best-in-class engineering, build quality, and reliability, was relegated to also-ran status.

To add insult to injury, the previously mismanaged Italian brands got much better organised and were funded by deep-pocketed owners in Audi/VW and Piaggio, while KTM exploded out of just being a dirt-oriented brand and Triumph got rich selling hipster bikes to riders smart enough not to try and home brew a CB400 calamity. BMW kept on BMWing, leveraging the aspirational branding of their cars into the bike market. They also moved away from 'good but quirky' (funky front ends, weird looks, heavy and slow) into dominating the massively profitable ADV market as well as building a superbike that rendered anything Japanese 'slow' overnight.

All this has left the big four with few profitable options in Western markets. Can't go volume, can't charge as much. The only choice left is to iterate slowly, maximise tooling value, and hope that eventually cheap bikes from China make them appealing enough to be able to charge European margins. They did themselves no favours by being well behind the curve on electronic trickery, which appealed most to younger buyers. Considering Japan's reputation as technological leaders, this was ironic.

It'll be interesting to see how it evolves. CFMoto is coming fast, and may eventually push Suzuki out as the value brand. Kawasaki and Yamaha are both part of extremely diversified businesses, and I think Honda will never abandon big motorcycles as long as the car division is profitable. As much as it's not the same company since the passing of Soichiro, motorcycles are in their DNA.
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in addition to all this, I'll add, it feels like the japanese companies are run by accountants and lawyers, whereas the euro companies are run by enthusiasts ,engineers, riders or racers.

And the end results show.



Case in point, at 1:00 (
)
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