Harley-Davidson's Q1 2026 financial results are out, and there's both good and bad news to report. Firstly, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: Consolidated operating income, which is most commonly defined as the core profits of a business, is down 85% in Q1 of 2026, as compared to Q1 of 2025.
Since it's easy to mislead with percentages, here's what that means in actual numbers. In Q1 of 2025, the Motor Company reported an operating income of $160 million USD. But in Q1 of 2026, it's reporting an operating income of just $23 million, representing that 85% drop mentioned previously.
The reasons given for this drop are, and I quote, "a decline of 84 percent at Harley-Davidson Motor Company (that's the core combustion-engined motorcycle business, not to be confused with the EV business side of LiveWire and StaCyc) and a decline of 65 percent at Harley-Davidson Financial Services."
