When it comes to sales figures for 2018, it is a good news / bad news type of situation for Ducati Motor Holding.
This is because the Italian brand sold 53,004 motorcycles to customers last year, which is a 5% drop from 2017’s figures, and ends an eight-year growth streak for the brand. That’s the bad news.
The good news though is that Ducati claimed the title as the top superbike brand in the world, with 9,700 Panigale models sold in 2018. This marks a 70% increase over the 2017 figures, thanks largely to the new Panigale V4 model.
Ducati says that 6,100 of those superbikes sold were from the Panigale V4, which is an impressive number from the Italian brand – especially when you consider the premium price tag that the Panigale V4 is commanding.
As such, Ducati now claims a 26% marketshare in the superbike space, which means that roughly one in four superbikes sold worldwide was a Ducati. That’s pretty good news for Ducatisti.
Ducati says that the Multistrada family performed well also, with 11,829 adventure-tourers sold in 2018. According to Ducati, 6,569 of those bikes were the new Multistrada 1260, which brought a 25% bump to the full-size ADV bike sales.
2018 marks the fourth year running that Ducati has sold over 50,000 motorcycles to customers, but the Italian brand was not immune to the sales trends of the industry, which is once again seeing a contraction. As such, The over 500cc bike market is down industry-wide by roughly 3% for 2018.
That loss in sales was felt the most in the USA, where sales were down 11% (7,843 units in 2018 vs. 8,898 units in 2017) and our sources are telling us that the North American subsidiary posted a sizable loss for the first time in many years.
Ducati’s home market of Italy remained strong, however, with sales up 4.5% and 9,200 bikes sold. This figure makes Italy once again Ducati’s largest market by unit volume (taking the crown from the American market), which is an interesting turn of events for the Italian brand.
Spain also performed strongly with 2,444 motorcycles sold (+8%), with further growth observed in Japan with 1,941 bikes (+2%), China (+23%), and Switzerland with 1,276 bikes (+2.2%).
“To rise to new market challenges,” said Francesco Milicia, Global Sales Director for Ducati. “We’re working to make our sales network more efficient than ever.”
“For 2019 we’ve also overhauled the Scrambler 800 range – which, among other things, has received a major active safety boost in the form of cornering ABS – and launched new products such as the Diavel 1260 and Hypermotard 950. The Multistrada family saw the arrival of the 1260 Enduro and 950 S, giving customers a wider choice than ever.”
“Lastly, we’ve introduced the V4 R, the most powerful, highest-tech superbike ever built by Ducati to provide a foundation for renewed competitiveness in the WorldSBK championship. Needless to say, its already proved to be a big hit with Ducatisti. In total, we’re talking about nine new models that allow us to look to the future with confidence.”
Source: Ducati
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