Interesting motorcycles stats

[Johncolleary]

Just got the new Roadracing World and they have an article regarding motorcycle sales:
Yamaha has seen sales increased by 22% from Oct. 2013 to Oct. 2015
Piaggio Group world wide sales up by 7.7% for the first 9 months of 2015 with Aprila sales up 23.4% compared to same period in 2014.
Polaris sales were up 154% for the third quarter of 2015 Mostly attributed to Indian and Slingshot sales
Harley Davidson world wide sales were down 1.4% third quarter 2015 with US sales down 2.5%
Thought these were of interest.
would like to know where Moto Guzzi stands in Piaggio numbers

[canuguzzi]

The bike market is recovering and it is good to see. That will bring innovation and we should see a big jump in electronics come down to lower priced models as costs to put them in those models goes down.

Advancements in suspension systems and other control systems should see a jump in quality and performance. All good to see.

[drlapo]

Wow! Polaris up more than150%
On sales of vehicles that don't interest me at all
Oh well I can still enjoy my Guzzi

[jas67]

Yamaha has seen sales increased by 22% from Oct. 2013 to Oct. 2015

I'm going to guess two big contributors to this success are the FZ-07 and FZ-09 (MT-07 and MT-09 elsewhere).   According to Dogwalker's post over on the NeoWing thread, they're the 4th an 5th best selling bikes in France.   While many here may not like the looks, they're great bikes.   I've ridden both, and found a lot to like about them.   

[Aaron D.]

My Italophile bike snob friend says the FZ07 is the best handling bike he's ever ridden.

[jas67]

My Italophile bike snob friend says the FZ07 is the best handling bike he's ever ridden.

The FZ07 is very Ducati Monster like, even in sound, as the parallel twin has a 270 degree crank.

As far as handling, it is good, but, has room for improvement, as you'd expect from a $7k bike.   The same goes for the FZ09.

In both cases $1,500 can make a huge improvement in the suspension, and still have less money invested than a Ducati.

I cross shopped both models against the Street Triple R and the Monster 796.    I ended up with the Monster 796.  I liked the character of the motor and the looks the most of all of them.   The Street Triple R had the best chassis of the lot, but, only slightly better than the Monster.    My Monster now has an Ohlins rear shock, and will likely get Race Tech fork inserts next year.

I think Yamaha did an excellent job with both the FZ07 and FZ09.    They are not capitalizing on that effort with two now FZ09 derived models (FJ09, XSR900), and an FZ07 derived XSR700.   Those new models will split the sales numbers, but, I'll bet if you add them all up, the 700 twin and 850 triple make up a sizable portion of Yamaha's sales for a few more years.

Suzuki will likely steal some of the FZ07 sales now that they've brought bake the SV650.     The new SV650 return's to the SV650's (Ducati Monster copy) roots, complete with a normal round headlight.