VOL. 52 ISSUE 18 MAY 5, 2015 P57
way. The second big pillar was
our expansion into new mar-
kets, because for sure like other
manufacturers based in Italy we
suffered a steep decline in our
home market that made things
very difficult in several ways.
Italy used to be Ducati's larg-
est market, is that correct?
Yes, it used to be the largest
by far up until 2012. And for any
automotive manufacturer your
home market is ultra important,
because normally you enjoy
double the share compared to
an export area because of famil-
iarity, better service, a greater
presence, and so on. When your
home market is in trouble it usu-
ally creates difficulties, so our
result last year was doubly im-
portant because we were able to
grow notwithstanding the steep
drop in home market sales. This
came mainly thanks to those
new products, and secondly to
opening new markets, espe-
cially Asia and Brazil where our
sales were able to compensate
for what we lost in the south of
Europe, and Italy in particular.
Is the fall in the Euro ex-
change rate, which obviously
makes your products more at-
tractive for countries outside
