News: Recreational Products

2020-07-26

Powersports Industry Leading Economic Comeback

The Powersports industry–featuring ATVs, motorcycles and watercraft–appears to be leading the way on the road to economic recovery. According to Motorcycle & Powersports News magazine, this increased demand for powersports is helping values bounce back from historic lows.

Michael Aistrup
Michael Aistrup

According to Scott Yarbrough, senior analyst for motorcycle and powersports at Black Book: “After the first month of the COVID-19, shutdowns put a freeze on powersports values during the beginning of the spring selling season, and the second month saw dramatic declines.

This month values are up across the board, some by the largest amounts we have ever seen in a monthly update. A combination of surprisingly strong demand, coupled with drops in availability of units, has led to this resurgence in values,”

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2020-06-29

Small Signs of Recovery in Japan’s Domestic Motorcycle Market

Akihiro Komuro
Akihiro Komuro

While car sales have been hit hard by the Coronavirus disaster, there are small signs of a recovery in the Japanese domestic motorcycle market. According to the Japan Mini Vehicle Association, new motorcycle sales in April 2020 (125 to 250cc) were up 2.0% YOY to 7,772 units.

This is the fourth consecutive month of YOY growth. Some observers believe this is a rebound from the decline following the October 2019 sales tax hike. This growth also is partly due to the growing need by commuters to use motorcycles as an alternative to public transportation to avoid coronavirus.

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2020-05-23

DATAPOINT: NA Personal Watercraft (PWC) 2020 Forecast: 88,300 Units

The 88,300 units is the estimate by Power Research of the number of Personal Watercraft (PWC) to be produced in North America (Canada, Mexico and the United States) in 2020.

This information comes from industry interviews and from two proprietary databases maintained by Power Systems Research: EnginLink™ , which provides information on engines, and OE Link™, a database of equipment manufacturers.

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COVID-19 Cuts Results at Harley-Davidson, Polaris

Harley-Davidson Q1 2020 Sales Plunge 15.5%

Harley-Davidson said US sales were up 6.6% in the quarter before the pandemic ground the economy to a halt in mid-March. But sales wound up plunging 15.5% in America compared to a year ago and 20.7% internationally. Overall revenue slipped 8% from last year’s first quarter.

For the quarter, Harley-Davidson posted earnings of $69.7 million compared with $127.9 million in the same period a year ago.

Michael Aistrup
Michael Aistrup

Harley-Davidson’s share in the U.S. heavyweight motorcycle market share was down 2.2 percentage points, to 48.9% and the company’s share of the heavyweight motorcycle market in Europe was 7.6% in the first quarter.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Harley has reduced planned capital spending, frozen hiring, temporarily reduced salaries, eliminated merit increases for employees in 2020 and changed the timing of new product launches in order to preserve $250 million in 2020.

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2020-04-25

TAIWAN REPORT: No New Coronavirus Cases

April 17, 2020–Taiwan reported no new coronavirus cases on April 14, 2020, marking the first-time authorities there have reported zero new cases in more than a month. It’s also the latest achievement for a health system that first acted to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in December.

Erik Martin
Erik Martin

With a population of around 23 million, Taiwan has only 393 confirmed COVID-19 cases; six people have died from the disease. The last time Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center announced no new cases was on March 9 – 36 days ago.

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Impact of COVID-19 in India on Engine-driven Applications

As of today, India is relatively less impacted by COVID than other nations. Because of the very bold and unprecedented move of a complete lockdown for about 40 days, India has managed to restrict the number of positive cases to 17,000.

Ritvik Kulkarni
Ritvik Kulkarni

Considering that India is a country with a population of over 1 billion persons living in challenging on-ground conditions, it is a phenomenal effort of proactive and timely response from the government as well as restraint observed by citizens.

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Q1 2020 Motorcycle Production in Brazil Was Strong But Will Drop in April

Different from the segments with 4 wheels or more, Motorcycles plants worked normally in March. The total production has been of 296 k motorcycles in the first quarter, about 7% above the same period of 2019. However, the stops in this sector started March 30 and will remain until the beginning of May.

Source: AutoData     Read The Article

PSR Analysis:

Although motorcycles are also a way of delivering packages in big Cities, sales of motorcycles in Brazil have a closer relationship with lower income individuals who see motorcycles as an alternative to bad public transportation or even animal transportation in rural locations.

This segment of the society has a high number of informal jobs, mostly related to service, heavily impacted by the social restriction measurements. Therefore, the impact on this business for the remainder of the year should be considerably high, despite of the growth in the first quarter. PSR

2020-04-24

Outdoor Recreation Group Creates COVID-19 Guide

The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR), a coalition of outdoor recreation trade associations and organizations, has published on their web site (www.recreationalroundtable .org) a guide for their members on the Outdoor Recreation Industry and the Coronavirus. Included on the site are Federal, State and Industry Resources, ORR’s letter to the President, Governors and Federal Government on the impact and recommendations to the Coronavirus crisis.

The site also has suggestions on what small businesses and policy makers can do to support efforts to combat the virus. The link for the informational site at ORR is: https://recreationroundtable.org/coronavirus/

PSR can support members of many of these organizations with focused and accurate forecasts of global diesel and gas engine production.  PSR


Michael Aistrup is a Senior Analyst

2020-03-23

RUSSIA REPORT, March 2020

This report includes updates on these manufacturers: Haval, Claas, Aurus, and KAMAZ.

Haval To Build Engine Plant in Russia

This article first appeared in the March 2020 issue of PowerTALK™ News

Haval, the Chinese manufacturer, said it plans to build its own engine plant in the Tula region of Russia. Work is scheduled start this month (March 2020). The planned investment in the project is US$ 270 million. This information comes from press-service of Haval Motor Rus.

Maxim Sakov
Maxim Sakov

It’s expected that the new plant will produce 80,000 engines annually, increasing the localization level of SUVs by several thousand units annually. Total personnel number in automotive plant exceeds 1000 people.    Read The Article

PSR Analysis: The first Russian Haval plant opened in May of 2019. Current production capacity is 80 Haval SUVs. The plant will be located on a 10,000 sq.m. site next to the Haval automotive plant. It will provide more than 300 jobs.

Claas is Shifts Production of Tucano 320 Harvester To Russia.

In April 2020, Russian plant Claas in Krasnodar will start producing the Tucano 320 grain combine. During the first two years, this model will be produced simultaneously in Germany and in Russia. Beginning in 2022, the plant in Krasnodar will became the sole maker for this model. The move opens opportunities to increase production and export volumes for the Russian plant.

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2020-03-22

2020 NA Utility Vehicle Production: 436,700

This article first appeared in the March 2020 issue of PowerTALK™ News

This is the estimate by Power Systems Research of the number of Utility Vehicles to be produced in North America (Canada, Mexico and the United States) in 2020.

DataPoint

This information comes from industry interviews and from two proprietary databases maintained by Power Systems Research: EnginLink™ , which provides information on engines, and OE Link™, a database of equipment manufacturers.

Market Share: With combined plant totals of 32%, Polaris leads in production of utility vehicles in North America. Polaris has plants in Mexico and the US. In second position is Honda with 13%, followed by Deere with 12%.

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