Personally, I think Harley has done an outstanding job keeping their market share. Not many years ago, they had a large percentage of the total street market, but not much serious competition in the cruiser sector, and they were holding their own against the touring sector (Gold Wings, BMW's etc.). Since then, every manufacturer has made serious competitors in the cruiser and touring sectors and Harley still dominates, although their market share has decreased somewhat, but the number of serious competitors has tripled. It's similar to the GM market share erosion from the 60's, when they had 50% of the market and 2 competitors. By the 90's, they had 30% of a market that was double the market of the 60's, but also had 3x the number of serious high volume competitors. If you look at the Harley rider demographic, most are older riders that started on small bikes. At bike shows, swap meets, etc., if you talk to a Harley rider, most started on small Japanese or European bikes, graduated to larger Japanese or European bikes, then finally ended up with a Harley as they realized the high performance wasn't all they wanted. The millenials (the ones that finally do ride) will get there too.
Not so fast........Damn Millennials. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-harley-davidson-results-idUSKBN1A3126 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-18/harley-davidson-is-losing-its-cool https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...uts-bike-sales-forecast-seeing-deep-u-s-slump
Not so. The original Scrambler. If you never had the pleasure of driving one of these things, you don't know what you missed. It was fast. Handled like shit.
Milennials are the first generation to be targeted by corporate marketing departments since before they could walk. So it should come as no surprise that the ole motor company's same ole shit bikes with BNG and revised marketing campaigns aren't selling. The generation that spent millions on fucking pet rocks will not miss a single opportunity to blame us for everything!