Honda sales show why Europe doesn't matter any more

And neither does America or Japan...

Posted: 27 January 2011
by Visordown News
Click the chart to enlarge

A PICTURE says a thousand words. Or, in this case, a graph does. Honda's just released its 2010 worldwide sales figure and if you're living in any of the so-called 'advanced' nations they make pretty grim reading.

While Honda's bare figures don't seem to mean very much on their own, we've put the latest ones into a graph, along with the firm's sales figures for the previous four years, to show just what's going on.

Overall, the Big H's sales are up, but across all the traditionally wealthy countries, where living standards are high, they're still on a distinct downward path. But what's really amazing is the enormous, and fast-growing, gulf between bike sales in Europe, America and Japan when compared to Asia. OK, so Asia might account for 60 percent of the world's population, but bike sales have nearly doubled in over the last five years and now Honda alone is flogging more than 14 million bikes per year over there. Compare that to Europe, where the firm sold just 258,000 bikes in 2010, and you can see why, to Honda, a new 150cc single might be seen as rather more important than working on the next-generation Fireblade.

Meanwhile, the figures for North America show just how bad the bike market there is. In 2005, it dwarfed the European or Japanese markets, with sales of 633,000 Honda bikes, but last year it became the smallest of all with only 192,000 new Hondas making their way out of showrooms



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Timpster

Most of the Asian market are wee pop pops with limited profit on sales or spares, ok economies of scale mean they make a lot of money, however the European market still pay a premium for the bikes and spares so we are still important in the great scheme of things.

I think they need to look at what is to sell in Europe now, sports bikes are on the decline sales wise so they need to look at the next big thing.


Posted: 27/01/2011 at 13:29


Tony Visordown
Please show the figures by value!

Posted: 27/01/2011 at 14:05


Brian Cordell 2

A stacked area chart would give us better information as well as looking at Net Sales dollars which net out manufacturing costs.  Here is the best place to look for that information.  http://world.honda.com/investors/annualreport/2010/pdf/honda2010ar-p12-17.pdf 

 I'm sorry, but the author is wrong in his analysis of financial impact.  


Posted: 27/01/2011 at 14:33


Pagik
Christ, bet you're fun down the boozer in the evening Brian............

Posted: 27/01/2011 at 14:34


wasabi

Maybe - but he can probably afford to drink 50 year old Malt in front of the fire at the mansion


Posted: 27/01/2011 at 15:04


Pagik

Yeah, but would it make you happy?


Posted: 27/01/2011 at 16:23


Darek Fudge

Who knows what these stats mean.  There's a lot of new money in Asia (China), and there probably isn't much of a used market there -- most bikes being outdated and small -- so new sales rise, whereas in the US and Europe, is there really incentive to buy a new bike where one built 4 or 6 years ago is perfectly competent?  Most of them are ridden few miles too, so they're nearly new.

I'm in the US and doubt I'd ever buy a new bike.  Plenty of lightly used ones with all the same features.  What am I missing that's in the 2010 models, 5lb weight savings?  ABS?  Different colors?  And the Japanese makers didn't even release any new models for 2011, leaving even less reason to buy new.

Also, for units sold, how many of those are tiny 125-250cc singles for commuting.  Different markets. 


Posted: 27/01/2011 at 18:36


rgvyan250

The manufacturers still use the Euro/US models to sell the smaller bikes in developing countries. Went to Delhi Auto Expo a couple of years ago and Yamaha were launching the R15 next to an R1 with R1 imagery all over the place. These countries still look to the west to see whats 'cool'.

If you think these figures dwarf euro sales, consider that Honda are still a minor player in India, their sales are tiny compared to Hero, Bajaj and TVS. With them splitting from Hero they are going to be more focused on upping their market share.

But if it really didn't matter, they wouldn't sell bikes here. They don't build Fireblades just to keep us westerners happy.


Posted: 28/01/2011 at 10:49


Timpster
Bit of a poor article really , as journalists you'd think they may look into it more rather than using a headline to grab your attention a la Motorcycle Snooze.  

Posted: 28/01/2011 at 11:33


pyndman

I don't know, the graph certainly surprised me. But interesting that China - that's a little place in Asia isn't it? - is a low seller as well. Not sure it would equate into Honda forgetting about the Fireblade though. One way to diminish the Asian numbers could be to supply them all with Fireblades. No helmet, ten kids and five chickens on board could be more detrimental to population than the plague was to Europe.


Posted: 29/01/2011 at 04:05

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