We are proud to release the first of our Brand Consideration Reports. These reports are intended to serve as a snapshot of the major manufacturers’ brand awareness, as measured by their search volume and market in Australia.
The figures in this report were gathered using three keyword research tools to assess over 40,000 search terms, representing more than 6.2m make and model searches in Q3 2023. The data shown in this report was collected between Q4 2022 and Q3 2023 and is based on the calendar year, not the financial year.
During our research, we elected to include dealership searches that included a brand name e.g.
“Springwood Suzuki” but excluded dealership terms that didn’t include an OEM brand e.g. “Sydney City Motorcycles”. We also elected not to include search terms for parts and merchandise and excluded any terms that imply a used bike search e.g “2021 Yamaha R1”.
This report first looks at the industry leaders among all brands, before we analyse the leaders based on the manufacturers’ region (European, Japanese, and North American), as well as seperate categories for Learner Approved Motorcycles (LAMs) and ATVs.
All Brands
First, let’s look at which brands command the largest market share based on searches within Australia between Q4 2022 and Q3 2023.
In the top three positions sit Yamaha, Harley-Davidson and Honda, with a 13.7%, 12.9% and 12.8% share of the searches in Australia respectively as of Q3 2023. Sitting just behind at 12.7% is Kawasaki, followed by KTM at 8%. The bottom half of the top 10 includes (in descending order): Ducati (6.5%), Suzuki (5.5%),Triumph (4.8%), BMW (3.9%) and Polaris (3.3%).
That the top 10 is dominated by the Japanese manufacturers comes as little surprise considering their expansive ranges include road, off-road and ATV sectors, giving them wide consumer appeal. What is noteworthy is that all three Japanese brands within the top 5 made gains in their market share over the past year, with Yamaha and Kawasaki gaining 0.6%, and Honda gaining 0.1%.
Harley-Davidson’s market share fell by 1.3%, while KTM’s remained stable at 8%. Although Harley’s loss may seem considerable, it is worth remembering that these figures reflect all brand searches. Because Harley operate in fewer categories than the Kawasaki, Honda and Yamaha, it is natural that their market share would decline as the Japanese brands make gains.
Most-Searched Models
This section looks at the most-searched models in Australia across all motorcycle brands.
It is important to note that model data is not as clean as sales data, because people will often search by family rather than an individual model. For example, most of the volume is for “Suzuki Boulevard” rather than at the individual model level of m109 or c50. In addition, people get makes and models confused – for example, we see a number of people search for a Kawasaki MT-09 every month.
Where possible, we have gone down to the individual model level. However, in some instances we have had to stay at the family level due to the data available to us. We have also excluded models that are no longer sold by OEMs – despite no longer being sold, the Honda Grom, if included, would have been a top 5 model, while the Street 500 was another high search volume bike that we excluded.
Learner Approved Motorcycles (LAMs) and supersport bikes dominate the top 10 models searched, with only one dirt bike sneaking into the top 10. While the searches for LAMs show the continued performance of that sector of the market, the dominance of the supersport category offers some interesting insight into search behaviours. The Kawasaki H2, for instance, is a 998cc hypersport bike and has been the second most-searched model in Australia over the past year.
What this indicates is that a large proportion of model-specific searches are what we would consider ‘bike porn’: flashy, headline-grabbing performance bikes that people consume a lot of content about but never buy.
European Road Brands
This section examines the market share for seven European OEMs: Ducati, Triumph, BMW, Aprilia, MV, Benelli and Moto Guzzi.
Ducati maintains the largest share of searches with 34.7% as of Q3 2023, followed by BMW at 26.3% and Triumph at 26.2%. Of the Italian brands, Aprilia possess the largest market share with 6.16% of the Australian search volume in Q3 2023, followed by MV at 2.5%, Moto Guzzi at 2.2% and Benelli at 2%.
However, although Ducati maintains the largest share of the search market, this share has declined by 2.34% since Q4 2022, while BMW’s has risen from 23% to 26.3% over the same period. We will continue to monitor both brands over the coming quarter and see if BWM can continue to claw away Ducati’s market share.
Japanese Brands
This section looks at the market share for four Japanese OEMs: Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki and Suzuki.
Market share has been relatively static across the Japanese manufacturers for the past year, with none of the four brands shifting even 1%. Honda came closest, with its market share decreasing 0.89% between Q4 2022 and Q3 2023, leading to slight gains for Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki of 0.46%, 0.36% and 0.07% respectively.
This stability supports the fact that all four brands are well-established in their positions and are unlikely to see a significant shift, if any at all, in their market share over the coming quarter.
North American Brands
This section looks at the market share for four North American brands: Harley Davidson, Polaris, Can Am and Indian.
Although Harley-Davidson remains the largest North American brand in terms of search volume, what is interesting to note is that the brand’s market share has been declining with each successive quarter, from 72% in Q4 2022 to 68.35% in Q3 2023, a 3.65% dip in just 12 months.
The majority of this loss has been eaten up by Polaris, whose market share grew 2.74% in the same period, from 13% to 15.74%. The remaining 0.91% was split between Can Am, with 0.8%, and Indian, with 0.1%.
While Harley is not likely to be dethroned any time soon, such a decline in a short space of time is likely due to increasing financial pressure on Australian buyers from rising interest rates, with manufacturers of big-ticket, prestige products such as Harley-Davidson the first to feel the knock-on effect of tighter household budgets and the disappearance of cheap finance.
We will continue to monitor Harley’s market share over the coming quarter, but with Australian interest rates unlikely to return to their record lows, we expect to see Harley and other major names continue to lose market share to their cheaper competitors.
Learner Approved Motorcycles (LAMs)
This section looks at the total search volume for all brands in the Learner Approved Motorcycle (LAM) category.
This segment of the market is dominated by the Japanese brands, with Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki sitting in the top 3 positions for total search volume, followed by Royal Enfield in 4th, KTM in 5th, and Suzuki in 6th, albeit with significantly lower search volume than the top 5 brands.
Search volume has remained relatively static amongst the top 5 brands, with slight shifts up and down for Honda, Yamaha and KTM, while Kawasaki has steadily trended up for a total gain of 12k searches per quarter between Q4 2022 and Q3 2023. Royal Enfield is the only brand in the top 5 to see a consistent decrease in search volume quarter-on-quarter, from a total of 168k in Q4 2022 to 148k in Q3 2023, representing an 11% decrease.
The top 10 is rounded out by BMW, Harley-Davidson, Aprilia and CFMOTO, indicating the healthy level of interest in the LAMs sector. Because this sector is overwhelmingly filled with first-time buyers, there is an immense opportunity for manufacturers of LAM-certified bikes to capture buyers early in their life cycle and build lasting brand loyalty.
Although searches in the LAMs sector are dominated by the top 5 brands (and especially the Japanese brands) there is still opportunity for those brands near the bottom of the list, with thousands of searches a month representing hundreds of possible leads and dozens of sales.
ATV & UTV Brands
This section looks at the market share of searches for the leading ATV brands.
Leading the pack is Polaris, perhaps one of the most recognisable brands in the farming and off-road sector, with 48.2% of searches as of Q3 2023. Trailing them in the top 5 is Can Am at 15.8%, Yamaha with 10.3%, Kawasaki with 8.1% and Honda with 5%.
We can see that Polaris made reasonable gains in market share across the year, rising 2.8% from Q4 2022 to Q3 2023, while Can Am lost 0.3%, Yamaha lost 1.6%, Kawasaki lost 0.2%, and Honda lost 0.9%.
Outside the top 5, CFMOTO gained 0.6% market share, moving from 5.8% to 6.4%, while Suzuki (0.2%), Kymco (0.2%), Landboss (0.1%) and Segway (0.1%) all made slight losses across the period assessed.
Retain Media
Although we have seen a general contraction in search volume across most segments of the Australian motorcycle industry – and can expect to see more as Australian households continue to tighten their belts – it is clear from our research that consumer interest is still high and is in fact growing in certain segments such as ATVs.
We will continue to monitor the performance of the Australian motorcycle market and release quarterly reports to provide invaluable insights for manufacturers, stakeholders, and enthusiasts. We will also be releasing our Brand Equity Research Reports for the Trucking, Construction, Agricultural, Caravan, and Marine industries in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for more industry-leading insights.
Retain Media provides this data “as is” for informational purposes only and accepts no liability for decisions made based on this reporting. Users are encouraged to use this data as one of multiple data points in their market analysis.
