Yamaha Motors just released its Q3 2024 financial report, and things overall are looking good for the company. So far this year, overall revenues are up 8 percent year on year, and the motorcycle segment in particular has seen higher revenues, profits, and sales so far for the first three quarters of 2024. Premium segment models, Yamaha says, have particularly contributed to the strength of its motorcycle segment.
Diving into motorcycle sales, growth in Brazil (23%), Vietnam (21%), India (16%), and Indonesia (11%) have helped propel the numbers upward year on year. For its part, sales in Europe/US/Japan (considered as one unit on this report) rose by eight percent. Sales were down slightly in Thailand, the Philippines, and China, but strong overall motorcycle sales across all markets combined still put Yamaha's sales figures for Q3 2024 ahead of the same period in 2023.
As always, though, a single quarter's results can't really paint a solid picture of trends, because it doesn't give you any kind of context for the numbers you're looking at. So, I've pulled sales figures going back to Q1 of 2022 and crafted some charts to paint a more complete picture of where Yamaha Motors has been in the recent past, as well as where it is now.
Here's a look at the quarterly motorcycle sales breakdown. Please note that you can hover over any dot on this chart to see the full number pop up if it is not prominently displayed at a glance.
In its reporting, Yamaha Motors categorizes its motorcycle sales into five geographic regions that it adds together to get the full worldwide picture. Those are: Japan, North America, Europe, Asia, and Others. Consistently, Asia (not including Japan, which is its own separate entity in these reports) remains, far and away, the largest market for Yamaha motorcycles.
How large is it? For the first nine months of 2024, it's sold 2,931,000 motorcycles across Asia. That represents a one percent increase in sales year-on-year over the 2,911,000 motorcycles it recorded sales of for the first nine months of 2023.
By contrast, the second smallest market in this chart is North America. For the first nine months of 2024, it sold 68,000 bikes, which is a 14 percent increase over the 60,000 bikes sold in the first nine months of 2023.
What's the smallest market on this chart? Japan, where Yamaha recorded 54,000 motorcycle sales in the first nine months of 2024. That represents a one percent decrease in sales, year-on-year, as compared to the 55,000 it sold in the first nine months of 2023.
Thanks to sales increases in North America, Europe, and Other markets, the numbers balanced out enough that Yamaha Motors has recorded a steady four percent increase in motorcycle sales so far over the first nine months of 2024.
How have yearly sales been going? 2023 was Yamaha's strongest sales year in the past few years, but the pattern back to 2021 shows steady growth with each passing year. While we don't yet have the numbers for FY2024, the first nine months of the year show that it's on track to continue the same steady pattern of sales growth seen over the past few years.
In this yearly sales chart, you can see that 2020 was the only year in this decade where annual motorcycle sales were below 4M units. We can't say for sure at this point what FY2024 will look like when all the numbers come in during the small months of 2025, but the first nine months of 2024 have a total sales figure that's very close to the entirety of FY2020, so signs of increased total sales for the year look good.
What can we learn from this information? When you're an international manufacturer, balancing the bikes you offer to match what riders actually want in the local area makes a difference.
We're not business experts here, but looking at all the numbers from OEMs that we do, the math on that looks pretty simple from here. Offer the bikes (or yes, other vehicles) that customers want, at prices they're willing to pay, and they'll buy them. Standing behind your products, having a reliable dealer network, and so on also helps.
