Australia has a dose of the motorcycle blues with Yamaha claiming the top sales spot in August in motorcycles, dirt bikes and ATVs for the first time.
Yamaha says their bumper August sales have boosted their year-to-date figures by nearly 10% over the same period last year while the market as a whole is up only 4.2%.
We can’t vouch for the claims because the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries official figures for motorcycle sales are only released quarterly to the public and are not due until early October.
Also, it should be noted that there are several manufacturers who do not supply figures to the FCAI, including mainly small-volume brands such as Benelli, Bimota, Bollini, CFMoto, Confederate, Daelim, EBR, Kymco, Laro, Megelli, Mercury, MV Agusta, PGO, Royal Enfield, SWM, SYM, TGB, Ural and Viper.
If Yamaha’s August figures are correct, it means the blue brand has leapfrogged Honda and Harley to gain top spot in road bikes and Polaris and Honda to top ATV sales.
They claim the WR450F was second behind the Honda postie bike as the top-selling bike.
Yamaha R3Meanwhile, the Kawasaki Ninja 300 has been unseated by the new YZF-R3 as the top-selling road bike (excluding the postie) and the Yamaha MT-07LA is the best-selling naked bike.
Yamaha spokesman Denis Roberts says the company’s success is related to “a great product range that really resonates with customers”.
“Yamaha engineers are really listening to what our customers want and they are now delivering bikes specifically tailored to the Australian market like the 655cc MT-07LA with power output maximised for our local learner laws,” he says in a press release.