Worse still to come as European motorcycle sales take big hit in March

The scale of the impact felt by the coronavirus shutdown across Europe has been reflected in the first set of monthly sales figures for motorcycles emerging from Italy and Spain.

Both nations are among the hardest hit in the world and now top the global death toll with more than 15,000 (Italy) and 12,000 (Spain) fatalities since the COVID-19 coronavirus began to spread.

As such, both countries have been observing a wide scale lockdown policy for three weeks now, which has seen production facilities and dealerships close.

As such, Italy – one of the first countries to introduce the strictest Stay At Home measures = saw its sales slide 65% year-on-year in March according to MotorcyclesData. Ominously though, this figure represents the fact dealerships remained open until March 10th prior to the major lockdown being initiated nationwide.

As such, unless there is a significant improvement in the global situation in the coming weeks, the industry is set to brace for an even tougher month in April and possibly May.

The slump comes after two very positive months in January and February, which had seen figures comfortably up on the same period in 2019. As such, Italy closes Q1 with a more modest drop of 25% but the gulf is expected to grow wider.

Italy’s figures are reflected by Spain too, which saw commercial sites remain open for a longer period in March but still suffer a slide of 46%.

The MCIA is poised this week to reveal its March motorcycle sales figures in the wake of strict lockdown measures being first introduced on 23 March.