UK motorcycle sales leap into fall season as recovery continues into September

The number of motorcycles sold in the UK during the first nine months of 2020 are now only 8% shy of the total shifted during the same period in 2019 as the industry continued its buoyant bounce back with another solid growth in September.

In all, 14,513 PTWs (powered two-wheelers) found new homes during the September 2020 month, a strong 11.8% increase compared with September 2019. 

The result is notable for continuing the trend of substantial re-growth in the wake of lockdown restrictions being eased, something not reflected in other European markets which saw flat sales year-to-year last month.

Mopeds and scooters drove the big improvements with a +32.4% and +18.9% increase respectively, while larger machines were also mostly on the up, particularly Adventure Sport (+15.4%), Supersport (+10.5%) and Naked (+9.4%). Only Touring posted a decline at a still relatively modest (-8.5%).

It means 2020 UK motorcycle sales compiled by the MCIA sit at 81,876 units sold to the end of September (two-thirds of the year), compared with 89,283 motorcycles sold in 2019.

While this remains a fairly large margin at -8.3% year-to-date, it’s still a vast improvement than at the end of May 2020 - aka. the immediate aftermath of the lockdown period that started in March - when sales were down -35.5% compared with 2019

The best selling motorcycles in the UK in September 2020

No surprises for guessing Honda remains the undisputed king of the overall sales charts with 2,433 sales altogether as a brand. Interestingly though, given the sharp jump in sales for the segment, the best-selling scooter - Honda PCX 125 - was for once not the top seller for September overall.

Instead, that honour fell to the BMW R 1250 GS Adventure, which earned 277 sales to also lead the Adventure Sport class, while this would be more if you grouped it with the other R 1250 models, with the RT also topping the Touring category. Not far behind was the Honda CB 125 F on 272 sales, with the Honda Forza PCX on 259.

The aforementioned results explain why BMW has surged up to second in the sales charts, nudging ahead of Yamaha in third and Lexmoto in fourth.

Triumph, Kawasaki and KTM closely matched in fifth, sixth and seventh. Suzuki enjoyed one of its best months for some time in eighth but not far off Triumph.

Broken down by category there are few surprises; the Kawasaki Ninja 1000 SX remains the best selling Sport/Tour, the Yamaha Tenere 700 cleans up the 651-1000cc segment and the newly-launched Yamaha Tricity unseats the Piaggio MP3 from the top of the trike charts.