Couldn’t help but notice that there have been plenty of stories across the internet in the last week or so following the release of data from the European Motorcycle Manufacturers Association that show significant increases in sales of new motorbikes (in Europe) when compared to the same period last year – which seems to be in stark contrast to the position in 2017 when sales and registrations had shown a marked dip. A simple Google search will throw up all kinds of information and stories and makes for interesting reading if that’s the sort of thing that floats your boat.
But in headline terms and sticking with the numbers (with data drawn from the European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (ACEM):
– motorcycle registrations in the EU increased by 19.2% during the first three months of 2019
– moped registrations in the EU also increased by 30%
– registrations of electric vehicles up by 71% in the EU
In practice that meant a 19.2% increase (or almost a quarter of a million 244,991 units. Broken down by country Italy was the largest market with almost 55,000 sales, followed by Germany (44,450); France (43,942); Spain (37,255) and the UK with 25,913 – which for the UK was an increase of a little over 10%
Interestingly although the total numbers of mopeds, motorbikes and quadricyles was relatively low at a little over 14,000 in percentage terms it was a huge 71% increase on the same period last year – but only, 2,200 or so were motorbikes.
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Sometimes you just want to swear