Ktm

Article about KTM overtaking Harley in bike sales on Bloomberg.com. Here is a piece from the article mentioning Triumph:

In 2013, Pierer spotted an opportunity to supercharge his expansion: buying Husqvarna from BMW AG, which had bought the Swedish nameplate a few years earlier but decided the off-road brand didn’t fit the German company’s lineup of highway rockets. Husqvarna helped KTM achieve something akin to the auto industry’s strategy of making multiple models based on almost identical parts. The two brands today share engines, suspensions, gearboxes, and other components but retain separate identities vis-à-vis consumers. “KTM and Husqvarna are rivals on the racetrack and when it comes to sales,” Pierer says. “For everything else, they are family.”

His aim now is to do something similar with Ducati, the spicy Italian nameplate that Volkswagen AG is considering selling, and Triumph, a venerable British brand that’s been struggling to sustain its growth. The companies each sold about 60,000 motorcycles last year—too small, Pierer says, to effectively compete. He’s seeking tieups that would benefit all parties by spreading development costs across a larger number of bikes. “We’re savaging ourselves in Europe,” Pierer says. “Let’s create a united European motorcycle company.” Triumph says it has no plans to sell.

Link to full article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-maker-ktm-passes-harley-and-aims-at-kawasaki