INTERVIEW
KTM PRESIDENT/CEO STEFAN PIERER PART I
P64
Stefan, it seems KTM continues to fly high.
Can you give me a summary of where it
stands right now?
Yes, we had another record year in 2014, with
an increase of 20.7 percent in turnover to 864.6
million [Euro]. So based on preliminary figures
we reached 865 million Euro in sales, and we
made 158,760 units in total, 28.2 percent up on
2013 and including 15,000 Husqvarnas. It's an
outstanding result with an EBIT [earnings before
interest and taxes] ratio of 9 percent… So 72-73
million Euro in profits, something like that. And in
2014, for the first time in KTM's company history,
more than 100,000 motorcycles were produced
here in Austria at our factory in Mattighofen, in
which we invested around 85 million [Euro]. This
means that since 1999, when production started
in this plant, more than 1.2 million vehicles have
been manufactured there according to our 'Ready
to Race' philosophy.
What was the balance of KTM streetbikes
built in 2014 compared to off-road models?
This was the first year that on-road was bigger
that off-road. So although we also had an in-
crease in off-road sales, on-road is growing much
faster than anything else. So we basically had
two strategic success elements: the first one was
that KTM is now seriously on-road with big bikes
like the 1290 Adventure and 1290 Super Duke,
and then the growth in volume of our joint venture
products coming from India.
How are those sales split between devel-
oping markets like India and South America,
and mature ones like Europe, the USA, Aus-
tralia and Japan?
2014 was the first year where we had more
Indian partner Bajaj Auto builds KTM's naked Duke and RC sportbike models.
