INTERVIEW
P68
KTM'S STEFAN PIERER
terms of unit sales. How did it
all come so good?
If we're talking about the exact
figures, we sold 107,142 units more than 32 percent up on the
year before - and we grossed
Euro 612 million, so it was our
best-ever sales year, with a net
profit of around Euro 37 million.
This was a big increase on our
previous best-ever annual sales
back in 2007, when we sold
92,385 KTM motorcycles. So
yes, it's been a great year for
KTM, and that's thanks to the
people in our workforce. Here
in Mattighofen we employ 1400
people, plus another 300 around
the globe in our 26 sales and
marketing subsidiaries – the latest one is in Singapore covering
the ASEAN countries. They're the
ones that made this happen.
This is a dramatic turnaround over the past five
years, after KTM sales collapsed in 2008. How many
bikes did you sell that year?
In 2008 we sold 62,000 bikes
coming from 92,000 the year before, so in one year we lost 30
percent in sales and almost 40
percent in turnover, so that was
a very, very tough year. But, we
reinvented ourselves after that,
and obviously we made the right
strategic decisions, so we are
now getting the benefits of this.
Has it been a product-driven
rebirth?
Absolutely. I think the success
of KTM is based on three pillars.
One pillar, of course, is innovation, so new products which are
KTM's racing success in
2012 was unmatched – led
by Ryan Dungey's AMA
National Championship…
the best available in their categories. The second pillar is globalization – we have growth rates in
Asia beyond 500 percent, and
we also have three-digit growth
rates in South America, so globalization is a key issue. For example, two years ago we made
87 percent of our total turnover in
Europe, North America and Aus-
tralia. This has already changed
completely - we now expect this
to count for a maximum of 70
percent in the coming year from
these three big areas, with the
rest coming from Asia and Latin
America, and these regions are
growing fast. Last but not least,
the third pillar is having a very,
very strong brand, with clear
