Over the past week, the 24/7 Wall St.–The Channel Checkers surveyed 30 Harley Davidson dealers across the United States  to track sales trends of Harley Davidson motorcycles. We asked the following questions:

1. What bike model sell the most right now?
2. Are you sold out of any models right now?
3. How are business levels compared to this time last year?
4. Has there been an increase in sales in the past month?

• The Harley Sportster XR 1200 was cited as the best selling model by 57% of respondents.  The Dyna  series, which includes the Fat Bob and Rocker C models was seen as the top seller be 13%.

• 87% of respondents said they were not sold out of any models.  13% said they were sold out of some models and cited the Dyna Rocker C as one model that was sold out.

• 43% of respondents believed that business was worse in early April compared to April of last year. 30% saw business levels as the same as last year, while 27% believed that business was better than last year.

• Despite the negative sentiment on business compared to this time last year, 57% of respondents did say business had increased in the past month. 43% did not believe that business had increased in the last four weeks.

Conclusion of The 24/7 Wall St.–The Channel Checkers survey:  The absolute results for Harley appear to be generally negative. However, the data reads less poorly than in recent surveys.  The 57% who see business increasing in the past month is the best reading for this question in the past few months. The low priced Sportster continues to be the top selling model.  Potentially lower gross margins tied to the Sportster could a downside to this statistic.

For more data go to The Channel Checkers website.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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