Polaris Is Off The Reservation

Don’t get your underwear wrapped around the axle with that title.

“Off the reservation” is a common phrase, which many people use without considering the context of its original meaning. Namely, that Native American peoples were restricted to reservations created by the U.S. government, and their freedom was severely limited by the terms of the treaties they were often forced to sign.

I’m using it in its literal sense (to deviate from what is expected) and as you might anticipate it’s a reference to Indian motorcycles rampant sales and intractable competition versus the Harley-Davidson Motor Company.

Harley-Davidson posted flat sales for Q2 2014, yet Indian/Polaris posted higher revenues for the second quarter 2014 at $1.01 billion, reflecting an increase of 20% over last year’s second quarter sales of $844.8 million.  Polaris stated that sales at its motorcycles division soared 107% year-over-year to $103.1M in large part due to strong demand for the new 2014 Indian motorcycles.  Clearly they have deviated from what was expected.  One could debate that given Polaris motorcycle revenue is much smaller than Harley’s, it’s easier for them to hit double digit growth numbers, but that would be down playing the strong demand for the Indian products.

Additionally, Harley-Davidson stated its share of the market for new heavyweight motorcycles with engines of 601 cubic centimeters or greater slipped to about 50% in Q2 2014 from 53% a year earlier.  Another indicator that competition is weighing on the company.

Financial calls with terms like ‘diluted earnings’ and ‘operating efficiencies’, don’t mean much to riders and it’s not like Harley-Davidson is hurting.  But, it’s good to see Indian doing well with North American retail sales up 15% year-over-year in the second quarter.

Congrats!

Full Disclosure:  I’ve got a riding buddy who traded his H-D Street Glide in on a new 2014 Indian back in January and loves it.  There is no dealer in Oregon yet and he went to the extra effort of buying it from a Seattle dealer.

Photo courtesy of Indian/Polaris.

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Harley-Davidson Continues Adjusting To The Absence Of Road Glide

Harley-Davidson announced it’s Q2 2014 financials, indicating that Q2 net income was $354.2M on consolidated revenue of $2.00B, compared to net income of $271.7M in the year-ago period on consolidated revenue of $1.79B.

Dealers worldwide sold 90,218 new motorcycles compared to 90,193 motorcycles in the year-ago quarter.  U.S. sales were flat/down as dealers sold 58,225 new Harley-Davidson motorcycles in the quarter, compared to sales of 58,241 motorcycles in the year-ago period.

Some interesting nuances from the analyst call:

• Market share was down 2.6% on a year-over-year basis at 50.3%.
• Management confirmed the Road Glide is coming back with the new 2015 product launch in August.
• In the U.S. the Road Glide accounted for 10% of sales
• There were self-inflicted wounds with the intro of the Street on Sportster sales which was down double-digit and compounded by lack of Street inventory.
• Management stated Indian touring bikes have had little impact on Rushmore bikes which in the first half were up double-digits.  But, read this HERE which colors the picture a bit different.
• The Street start-up issues are supply chain in nature and related to this being the first time H-D is manufacturing a product internationally.
• H-D now expects to ship between 270K and 275K motorcycles worldwide which represents growth of approximately 3.5% to 5.5% versus prior year.

Despite the soft Q2 sales, H-D believes the demand fundamentals for the business remain intact and underlying growth trends are strong.  The industry has grown for three straight years coming into this year and there is more investment in the industry than Harley-Davidson management has seen in the last five years in terms of new products, marketing and advertising.

UPDATED: August 1, 2014 – Harley-Davidson officially reveals the 2015 Road Glide.

Photo courtesy of Edgar and H-D.

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