The Motorcycle & Moped Industry Council (MMIC) has released its 2022 end-of-year sales numbers, and they’re good-ish… although not as good as 2021’s stats.
The MMIC is the industry organization that represents Canada’s powersports businesses, so it’s got a good handle on sales numbers in both the dirt and street worlds, for motorcycles, scooters and ATVs. According to its internal charts, Canada outsold 2021’s motorcycle numbers year-over-year in the months of May, August and September. For the other nine months, Canadian dealerships sold less motorcycles than they had in those months for the previous year, but for the most part, it was pretty close.
At year’s end, Canada sold 61,216 new motorcycles in 2022, down from 66,299 in 2021. A decline for sure, but in the five previous years, nationwide sales had never eclipsed 60,000 units, so there’s not really much to complain about. Given the complaints that many dealerships had regarding supply chain issues, it seems likely that sales in 2022 could have been much higher if dealers had had the products they wanted to sell.
An interesting note: Despite sky-high gasoline prices, scooters did not sell particularly well in Canada in 2022. Total step-through sales were 3,329 units, right around where pre-COVID numbers were. This could be a case of not having enough product to sell, as there are very few scooters coming into Canada these days. However, you’d think that with gas prices going up, scooter sales would take a similar trajectory, but that was not the case.
For the sake of reference, it’s also interesting to note that ATV sales were also down for 2022, and for most of the year, the decline was more noticeable than it was in the motorcycle department. For ATVs, the only month where Canadian dealerships outsold the previous year was May. Total end-of-year sales were 45,601 units, very much in-line with pre-COVID numbers. No doubt there’s all sorts of speculation and extrapolation that you could do with those figures!
I like motorbikes.
And it looks like a new one shall be joining me this season.
It would be interesting to see these numbers broken down by make and category but that’s not likely to happen. Nobody wants to spill the beans.