BMW Motorcycles Hits Sales Record in the First Half of 2017

The internet has been abuzz lately with the report that Harley-Davidson sales are slumping. Many outlets reporting the fact that millennials aren’t buying Harleys as doom-and-gloom for the motorcycle industry as a whole.

The story is a little different at BMW Motorrad. The Bavarian company's motorcycle division has hit a record high in the first half of 2017, selling 88,389 bikes—a significant, 9.5 percent increase over the same time period in 2016. This is no fluke: it's the fifth consecutive year that BMW Motorrad has boosted their sales, and they’re on track for 2017 to be their best year ever.

BMW Motorrad general director Stephan Schaller said in a press release, “For all of us at BMW Motorrad it is a great pleasure and a confirmation of all our efforts that our customers continue to show us that we are on the right track with our model initiative.”

The sales boost comes thanks mostly to the “travel enduro” R1200GS and its Aventure variant, which saw a 17.3 percent sales increase for a total of 17,159 bikes moved. Another factor is the popular retro-modern R NineT lineup growing to stable of five bikes.

The sales boost for BMW Motorrad has mostly been in Europe—except in the UK, where sales are down 14.1 percent. The company's home turf of Germany is its biggest market, and where much of the sales growth is taking place. In the US, BMW saw a modest, 3.8-percent bump.

Depending on how well received the upcoming K 1600 B Bagger is in the US, us Yanks could be accounting for even greater growth for BMW in the second half of this year.