A Feat in Today’s World
Yesterday I reported that Harley-Davidson is struggling pretty hard to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy. It seems Indian Motorcycle is much better suited to weather the storm. Indian’s sales were actually up seven percent when compared with Q1 of last year.
Polaris owns Indian, and Polaris saw a drop in sales overall of about six percent. Motorcycles, meaning those sold by Indian, were the only area of the business that didn’t decline in Q1 of 2020. The rest of the areas of the Polaris portfolio took a hit, including (according to the Polaris report) off-road vehicles and snowmobiles, global adjacent markets, aftermarket, and boats.
This is good news for the company and the Indian Motorcycle brand. It will be interesting to see if Indian can keep up the positive momentum in Q2. It will likely be tougher due to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t get into full swing until partway through Q1 whereas Q2 will be one entire quarter impacted by the virus and its effects on the economy. With so many companies taking a hit in Q1 it’s nice to see Indian hanging in there.