In the wake of last week’s bad financial news for Harley-Davidson, custom bike blogger Cyril Huze has put together a brief breakdown of Harley-Davidson’s financial numbers.
Huze formulated the numbers after a conference call where Harley-Davidson CEO Matt Levatitch told investors the MoCo plans to “add 2 million new Harley-Davidson riders and launch 100 brand new models during the next 10 years while growing the international business by 50%.”
If you’re interested in what the numbers have to say, head over to Huze’s blog and see his quick summary, detailing declining stock value and income, worker layoffs, decreased sales expectations and a rise in CEO pay. The comments section is worth a perusal as well.
In order for Harley to remain profitable, they merely have to double their effort to market more….T-Shirts!!
Emblazon MAGA alongside the usual HD graphics and they’ll sell like hotcakes! D’oh!!
HD have the new 500 and 750 platform which should give them some options for new models, but apparently the so-called “Street Rod” is a nightmare ergonomically. One of the print motorcycle magazines referred to it as only comfortable for yoga practitioners. If you can’t even make one derivative model that is actually reasonably comfortable, you’re in trouble.
HD racing programs are completely outsourced for pro stock and flat track, and their “Pro Stock” drag bikes have exactly zero HD parts. If you can’t even have a realistic racing program in-house, you are not reaping the benefits of learning from your racing effort. It’s just marketing BS at that point.
I don’t know: Maybe they can make some headway with their electric motorcycles, but right now it looks like they are going to have trouble making motorcycles that will sell. I think Indian is going to eat their breakfast, lunch and dinner for the foreseeable future. If I was in the market for a cruiser, I would be looking at Indian and their bobber long before I look at anything from HD.
100 brand new models during the next 10 years? Easy with the Harley styke. Take one bike and change the handlebars. 3 differents handlebars = 3 brand new models. Change the peg localisation. Voila, other brand new models.