European Motorcycle Registrations Continue to Grow in 2018

While the motorcycle market in the United States continues to struggle in 2018 (despite gains in consumer spending), things across the pond are doing substantially better.

This news comes from the European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (ACEM), which is reporting an 8.2% increase in motorcycle registrations in Europe during the first nine months of 2018. This trend was additionally buoyed by the third-quarter registration results from 2018, which are up 10.4% over Q3 2017 figures.

The ACEM also reports that sales are up across all of the European countries, except for Poland, which posted a 2.3% loss in the first nine months of the year. Italy remains the largest European motorcycle market (186,487, +5.1%), followed by France (146,276 motorcycles, +10%), Germany (140,628 motorcycles, +11.1%), Spain (113,650 motorcycles, +8.0%), and the UK (83,155 motorcycles, +3.7%).

Interestingly, Europe continues to see dwindling sales for mopeds, with registrations down 26.1% so far this year. However, many of those sales are merely moving from thermic power to electric power, with electric sales up 49%.

As such, most of the electric vehicles registered in 2018 have been mopeds (26,210 units), followed by motorcycles (7,652 units), and a much smaller number of quadricycles (about 2,408 units).

With this report, the European Union is on track for its fifth consecutive year of motorcycle growth, though the industry is still well below its high-water mark for 1.5 million units from 2007.