Ducati had another record sales year in 2016

Now that the year-end sales figures are in, Ducati’s numbers indicate another year of record sales in 2016.

Ducati’s records show it sold 55,451 bikes last year, up from 54,809 bikes in 2015. Small gains, but that’s still growth in the right direction. Considering the doom and gloom heard from some industry figures ever since the 2008 financial crash, it’s impressive to consider that Ducati has now strung together seven years of sales growth.

The addition of the Scrambler sub-brand is a huge part of that success. According to Ducati’s press release, more than 15,500 Scrambler-branded bikes sold in 2016.

That’s more than a quarter of the Italian brand’s sales last year, and that was back before the lineup expanded with the new Desert Sled and Cafe Racer models. Ducati’s move to recycle old technology into more affordable motorcycles has definitely paid off, and you can bet other manufacturers are watching the Scrambler brand very closely, trying to think of ways to pull off a similar coup. The Scrambler line was a gamble, but Ducati appears to have played its cards very well.

Interestingly, the biggest Ducati market was the US, not Italy, as you might think (Italy was second-highest sales by country). Americans bought 8,787 Ducatis last year, the company says. But many of the company’s non-traditional markets saw big growth last year, particularly China (120 per cent sales growth) and Argentina (219 per cent sales growth). The percentages themselves don’t mean much without knowing the total numbers, but it’s a sign Ducati is working to expand to new markets with an interest in buying bikes.