KTM Struggling With “Economically Volatile and Difficult Conditions”
The KTM parent company Pierer Mobility Group has spoken mid-year slump in sales and profitability
After years of growth, expansion and strong market performance, KTM, via its parent company Pierer Mobility Group (PMG), has addressed a slump that has led to Q1 and Q2 losses totalling 172 million euros.
Spring 2024 saw PMG adding MV Agusta to its sizable roster, meaning the Varese brand joined KTM, GasGas, Husqvarna, and WP Suspension. The acquisition of MV (PMG took a controlling 50.1 per cent slice of the company) painted a picture of an automotive brand that was in rude financial health.
Last week PMG released a statement shining a light on 2024 so far, and it highlights falling sales (down 27 per cent), and losses in Q1 and Q2 of 2024 so far. Compared to the same period in 2023, in which PMG posted profits of 53 million Euros, the financial picture looks bleak, with losses of 172 million Euros for 2024 being attributed to several factors.
Firstly, PMG points to a decline in new motorcycle sales, highlighting the United States as a key area in the drop-off in sales. With much of the KTM, and Husqvarna ranges (and all of the GasGas ICE range) being off-road and enduro motorcycle biased, a decline in sales in the USA will always result in a big fall in profits.
PMG also points to what it calls “expenses in connection with the restructuring of the Bicycle segment” as another driving force behind the poor financial results. KTM, Husqvarna and GasGas all have bicycle and e-bike businesses that run alongside the motorcycle manufacturing elements of each brand. It’s this “restructuring” that has led to PMG’s bicycle and e-bike brands posting a combined -75 million Euro losses.
The negative results may look and sound slightly more bleak than they are, though, as KTM, led by its co-CEO, Gottfried Neumeister, is predicting losses at the end of 2024 totalling between 10 and 15 per cent.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
