INTERVIEW
P64
KTM'S STEFAN PIERER: PART II
The KTM headquarters in Mattighofen, Austria.
growth potential, and the market
is very badly affected in Southern
Europe by the economic crisis.
Our typical motocross or enduro
rider is a guy working for a construction company, who works
a lot of overtime and has some
money to spend, but if he is out
of a job then he doesn't buy an
enduro bike.
However, this isn't just an issue
with off-road, but on-road too. In
the so-called developed markets
like North America I would say it
has found a base level, and for a
year and a half it's been stable,
maybe slightly increasing by
2-3 percent, while Australia and
Canada actually went up quite a
lot. But the European market in
2012 lost 12 percent compared
to 2011, and if you're looking at
southern Europe then it's a 25
percent decline year on year.
It's the fifth year in succession
it's gone down. So, every market sector is losing out, and especially the off-road as well, and
that's the reason for the consolidation in the motorcycle industry.
Germany is still doing very well,
and also the central European
markets of Poland, the Czech
Republic, and so on. But then
Italy is a nightmare - it's a free-forall. In my opinion it was heavily
