Global Motorcycles Industry keeps momentum. In the first quarter 2025 global trend was again almost positive and the quarter was the best ever with 15 million sales (+3.0%). The fastest growing region is Latam while Europe lost over 16%.
McD tracks new motorcycles registrations in over 92 different markets, representing the 99.4% of the global motorcycles industry (including categories like ATVs/RUV, Tuk-tuk and – of course – 2/3 wheelers). So, we report on REAL historical data and our forecast are based on facts and data. We do not sell “Market Research”, but REAL data in excel plus our Senior Partners consulting and expertise in the industry.
Economic Environment
The world economy has shown remarkable resilience, with global growth projected at 2.8% in 2025, the same as in 2024, and 2.9 per cent in 2026. This stability has been underpinned by continued disinflation, softening commodity prices, and monetary easing in many countries.
However, ongoing conflicts, geopolitical tensions and potential trade restrictions, as well as climate risks pose significant challenges going forward. The global economy is set to grow at a slower pace than the pre-pandemic average of 3.2% recorded between 2010 and 2019, reflecting ongoing structural challenges such as weak investment, slow productivity growth, high levels of debt, and demographic pressures.
Economic growth in the United States is projected to moderate from a robust 2.8 per cent in 2024 to 1.9% in 2025, amid weaker labour market performance and looming public spending cuts. Economic growth in China is expected to remain just below 5 per cent in the coming years, constrained by subdued consumption growth, ongoing weakness in the property sector, and the challenges posed by a shrinking population and rising trade tensions. Japan and Europe are forecast to experience modest economic recovery in 2025 and 2026, following weaker-than-expected growth in 2024.
Motorcycles Industry Outlook
In this economic environment and following the previous three years increase, the global motorcycles market arrives at 2025 having reached in the previous year the new all time record with 62.1 million sales, 2.9% vs the previous year, recovering near 10 million sales from 2020 negative peak.
In the first quarter 2025 global trend was again almost positive and the quarter was the best ever with 15 million sales (+3.0%).
The market keeps to be pulled ahead by the strong momentum in India, the largest market. Following the outstanding +14.1% reported last year, sales in Q1 were still positive while for a mere 1.0%.
The fastest growing region continue to be the Latin America with quarterly sales up a roaring 22%. the largest market and all markets very fast, with Brazil, up 7.3%, Argentina 37.0%, Colombia +34.7%, just to mention the biggest, but with all countries up and only the Dominican Republic reporting a decline (-7.4%).
The Q1 was almost positive for the ASEAN, up 4.2% and with 7 out of the 8 countries in the region reporting positive figures.
In North America sales were positive (+0.9%) thanks to Mexico (+4.6%) while the Trumpeconomics effects has been already sharp on USA (-9.5%) and Canada (-21.8%).
Western Europe (including UK) was in really bad shape with sales declined 16.6% due to the strong self-registrations applied in the last quarter 2024 to respect the introduction of new rules on vehicles noise levels.
In East Europe sales declined 40.5% due to the end of the Turkish market boom.
In ASIA sales are declining in China (-2.4%), Taiwan (-6.2%), Japan (-4.6%) and South Korea (-1.7%).
