Articles

Despite warm weather, concerns over mortgages and economy dampen sales

After three consecutive years of flat sales, it appeared that the U.S. PWC market was finally undergoing a significant turnaround in 2005 but the 2006 year end sales figures indicated that the market had leveled off. May year-to-date sales for the 2007 season have confirmed that the market continues to inch along and may actually be up less than 1% on the same period last year. However, a strong summer could see sales increase around 2-3% over the 2006 volume.

2007 Year-To-Date PWC Sales

U.S. sales of traditional brand ATVs are currently in their third consecutive year of decline, and while some analysts might attribute this to the increasing number of Chinese imports that have flooded the market in recent years it has also become apparent that another trend is having a significant impact on ATV sales.

Editor’s note: Power Products Marketing, a Minneapolis research firm, has been tracking the non-traditional brand ATV market for nearly ten years. This market consists of distributors of ATVs manufactured in Taiwan, China and to a lesser extent South Korea who do not report sales figures to the MIC. It does not include the Youth models that MIC reporting traditional OEMs such as Arctic Cat, Polaris, Can-Am, Kawasaki and Suzuki are sourcing from Taiwanese manufacturers. This report was prepared by Matthew Camp, a powersports analyst with the firm.