Another Record Year for Ducati

In further signs that the motorcycle industry is well on it’s way to recovery, Ducati has announced that it’s broken it’s sales records for the third straight year with 45,100 motorcycles being sold worldwide. This was in large part due to the success of the beatiful 899 Panigale and the new Monster 1200 and 821.

On top of having record sales for three years in a row, it’s also the fifth consecutive year of sales growth by the Italian marque. Total sales were up 2 per cent in 2014. Sales in the Monster line of bikes rose by 31%, with 16,409 new bikes sold. The superbike family, thanks to the widespread introduction of the 899 Panigale had a sales increase of over 12 per cent with a total of 9,788 bikes sold in 2014.

Total sales in the USA was 8,804 – more than any other country by a large margin. Sales in Europe totaled 19,743 (actually down 3 per cent) and in their home country of Italy, sales were actually down a significant 14 per cent. The UK had a large increase of 16 per cent which shows sales were broadly in line with the economic situation in Europe.Asia was also a success story with Thailand experiencing massive growth of 22 per cent (selling a total of 3,057 motorcycles, more than that of the UK), Australian sales were up 13 per cent (2,132) and China won the race with sales nearly doubled.

In Europe sales slowed a little (-3% with 19,743 bikes), mostly due to challenging conditions on several markets. However, while sales in Italy fell short of those attained the previous year (-14% with 4,284 bikes), other European countries were almost stable, with the UK actually experiencing significant double-digit growth (+16% with 2,742 bikes).

There’s little doubt that Ducati will have a record year in 2015 and it’s likely to smash the previous year with the release of the Ducati Scrambler. Ducati has been tight lipped about sales expectations of the retro model but we’ve heard that they expect to sell more Scrambler’s than their entire Monster range combined – upwards of around 20,000.Given the hype surrounding the machine and the near universal praise for it in reviews, that figure doesn’t sound at all unlikely.

 

Another Record Year for Ducati