Italy and the rest of Europe saw major jumps in terms of sales recently, recovering from the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic that was quite bad there. Now, things are trending back down.
August and September proved to show positive growth and a real boom for two-wheeled machine sales. That has been disrupted in October, according to Motociclismo.
The publication reports that October sales in Italy closed in the negative when compared to last year. Sales for vehicles with a displacement greater than 50cc were down nearly 14 percent.
Scooters were the biggest culprit with a decrease in sales of 22.29 percent. However, other sectors of the two-wheeled market like motorcycles and mopeds were also down.
The overall for all sectors is 11.51 percent across all types of two-wheeled machines and all displacements. In Italy, 17,554 vehicles made it to the road in total in October.
The year-to-date numbers obviously don’t look too great either. While sales came back strong for a few months, they dropped considerably during the first wave of the pandemic.
One exception to all this is electric bikes. Zero-emission mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles saw growth of 115.2 percent in October. Year-to-date numbers indicate growth of 127.11 percent compared to 2019.
I’m hoping the second wave of COVID-19 isn’t as bad as the first, especially in Italy, for both the sake of the people there and the motorcycle industry and the nation’s economy. While other markets around the world saw increases in sales for motorcycles, this could be a worrisome start of what’s to come if the second wave of the pandemic proves to be