interview with Husqvarna president

[kawamaha]

wanted it to post in the "An important message to..." thread, but right now its closed...

some of you were talking about politics of the factory. so maybe you are interested in an article of a german MX magazine, where the husqvarna president Klaus Allisat gave an interview.

some US related words:

the main target for the european market is the onroad market. though there are other interesting areas, especially the US offroad market is huge and also australia is at the same level...

..but we have to admit that we have accumulated needs in the US offroad market.

target for the US market:

we know that the US is a MX market, therefor you have to show, how successfull you are there. We are established well there, though we will be even more aggressive to be even more successfull...

... we have a good team, former MX champions and very good managers, who partly left KTM. we could also assure some KTM dealers to work with us...

how about 2 strokes:

...at the moment this market is the only one who rises. so we respond. the trend is FI, of course and we work on a new generation of 2-strokes. we want to become the best there, too.

hope you understand my translation...

[Ride]

Sounds about right from what we are hearing here as well. thanks for the post

[kiwiklx]

Can't argue with those comments, they make alot of sense.

[highmarker]

sounds like they are on the same page as the japanese? thinking were a mx market

is ktm the only company that gets it?

[mnb]

The US is a street market. The off road market here may be huge compared to Europe (I don't know if it is or not), but the street market here is much, much larger.

If they're putting a lot of money into making street bikes (and they are moving forward), they're fools for ignoring the US market.

[highmarker]

so they should build a v-twin ? LOL there product line is so close now IMO, just need some small changes here and there for the us markets. For example they are going to kill off the 630 for poor sales, heck I know several riders who would have bought them if they wouldn't have eurofied it! instead they kept their 610, If they would have sent the 630 over here with a carb and a single pipe they could have sold a bunch.

The US is a street market. The off road market here may be huge compared to Europe (I don't know if it is or not), but the street market here is much, much larger.

If they're putting a lot of money into making street bikes (and they are moving forward), they're fools for ignoring the US market.

[Big and Husky]

If they would have sent the 630 over here with a carb and a single pipe they could have sold a bunch.

Hey, even fi and single can to loose a little weight!

Big

[36MotoMarc]

sounds like they are on the same page as the japanese? thinking were a mx market

is ktm the only company that gets it?

Um, we are. Regardless of what the bike gets used for after the sale, MX bikes sales WAY outnumber offroad-specific bikes, the fan base is WAY bigger, the coverage is WAY more extensive. Do you not think they've done extensive market research to support that statement? Not a snuff to offroaders, just the facts.

Nice read, thanks!

[sgmartz]

its kind of a catch-22 though isnt....i think a vast majority ride MX bikes as trail bikes because theyre cheaper and theres enough out there to pick em cheaply and ride em....i think though that as ktm, husky, and the couple jap offroad bikes have been around for more time and they have a chance to iterate through the used market then we will see a push towards off-road....

[weantright]

Locally the fastest growing market is off-road/DS for Honda and KTM. Kawaski and Yamaha still sells MX over off-road. I bet it has alot to do with models each MFG is producing.

[kiwiklx]

its kind of a catch-22 though isnt....i think a vast majority ride MX bikes as trail bikes because theyre cheaper and theres enough out there to pick em cheaply and ride em....i think though that as ktm, husky, and the couple jap offroad bikes have been around for more time and they have a chance to iterate through the used market then we will see a push towards off-road....

The MX bikes will continue to dominate as trail bikes I believe, they can do both trail ride & MX so there are more of them, cheaper, more parts, lighter, more graphics/bling, they have latest & greatest tech, also if KTM are any indication they are moving e-start.