Latest sales figures from the Department for Transport for January-March 2022 showed UK bike sales on the increase, though there were still winners and losers.

Honda held onto its traditional No1 spot by a country mile, selling nearly 5500 bikes and scooters to grab a market share of just over 20%. Big H topped both 50-125cc and the 126-650cc segments, with four of its bikes and scooters taking the top four places among the 125s. Not least among them was the PCX125 scooter, with 792 sales making this the best-selling powered two-wheeler of any type in January-March.

Of the big name marques, only Kawasaki and Royal Enfield, the latter boosted by buoyant sales of the new 350 Meteor, which took sixth place overall, and the Interceptor 650, which just squeezed into the top 20. BMW, Yamaha and Triumph (second, third and fourth respectively among the marques) saw sales increase, but lost market share. The same was true of Lexmoto (sixth overall), plus KTM, Ducati and Harley-Davidson, who filled out the top ten.

Electric bike sales nearly doubled compared to the same period last year (1865 vs 974) with Super Soco’s CPX scooter the overwhelming best seller at 391 – that gave it ninth overall, nearly matching the Honda SH125. Honda’s CRF300 was the sole trail bike to make the top 20 (fifth overall) while BMW’s R1250GSA keeps its crown as king of adventure bikes (second in overall sales) – runner up adventure machine was the Triumph Tiger 900, in tenth place.

“Excellent to see that motorcycle sales are on an upward curve. Particularly entry level bikes and scooters, where the switch towards battery power gathers pace. The continuing success of Enfield, with their emphasis on relatively minimal tech combined with value, shows that traditional bikes still have a big place in the market.” said BMF Chair Jim Freeman.

Written by Peter Henshaw 

Top image courtesy of Motorcycle News