The Rise And Fall Of Harley-Davidson

You don't have to be a biker to know about Harley Davidson Harleys are big, loud, fast and inherently American until you've been on a Harley-Davidson, you haven't been on a motorcycle, get some of that Instant Respect just by writing a . and for decades, that iconic American brand worked in 2006, the company's sales in the US reached its peak, it sold more than 260,000 motorcycles in the United States and reported a profit of one billion dollars, but after After the recession in 2007, Harley's sales plummeted, dragging down its stock price. and the company still hasn't fully recovered in decades, they could end up disappearing.

We'll all continue to associate Harley-Davidson with the world's largest motorcycle brand, but there won't be a motorcycle you can't buy one, so what happened? Harley-Davidson began in 1903 in a shed in Wisconsin where William Harley and Arthur Davidson built their first motorcycle, but the company didn't really take off until World War II and, in some ways, it did. For War Harley Davidson May Not Exist Today During World War II Harley-Davidson produced around 60,000 motorcycles for the US Army, that was when there were actually people who had never experienced serious machinery that could meet I mean, it's a war machine. but it is also tremendous fun, an excellent test for men and machines, they face the obstacles at full speed now that they are true veterans of the saddle After experiencing the atrocities of war, the soldiers returned home and saw America under a different light and From that, they created a counterculture that would become the pillars of the Harley-Davidson lifestyle.

America was a very conservative place at the time and a lot of guys came back from that and said, uh-uh, I'm not interested in that. I'm going to buy a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and live on the road. I'm going to live my life on my terms with the Freedom Mobility attitude Between 1945 and 1970, the number of registered motorcycles in the US increased from 198,000 to 2.8 million, but it was Hollywood that set Harley-Davidson motorcycles apart of the rest with films like The Wild One and Easy Rider with Harleys. Oh, we represent the man to them as someone who needs a haircut.

What you represent to them is freedom. By the late '70s, Harley-Davidson was no longer just selling motorcycles, it was selling a lifestyle with jackets, vests and T-shirts. Harley-Davidson even had its own club called Harley Owners Group for devoted customers, in short if you owned a Harley Davidson you were cool and the Baby Boomers realized that the core Baby Boomers are the ones who really made Harley into the Juggernaut became in the post war period in the 80's. The Baby Boomers were thriving and so was Harley Davidson the Harley. Owners Group grew to more than 90,000 members by 1984 the company made a profit of $2.9 million just two years later the prophets reached $4.3 million Harley-Davidson went public in 1986 and continued to generate cash in the millennium in 2006 as its core customer reached middle age, the company's stock price peaked and reported more than $1 billion in profits, but then in 2007, the recession hit as many companies during the Great Recession.

Harley had problems with its sales. Its stock price plunged 60 points from its peak in 2006 to 2009. The 86 percent drop marked a 13-year low before the recession. Harley had been trying to reach emerging markets, such as women and young adults, with marketing events for beginner bikes and smaller, more fuel-efficient models, but had little success and in late 2009. The company reported losses for 55 million dollars, so to survive the recession, the company refocused on the type of bike it knew its core customer wanted, which were big, loud models, and it worked, profits rose to $844 million. dollars in 2014, but not everything was so As good as it seemed, those profits simply masked the brand's long-term problems, if you looked at a graph, what you would see is not that you know this kind of thing, but rather like you were seeing this kind of thing without problems. erosion The first problem is that Harley's primary customer is an Aging in 1985, the average age of a motorcycle owner was 27 years old.

In 2003 it was 41 and in 2018 it increased to 50, which means that Harley-Davidson's customer base is only aging and at the moment there is no one taking its place, the second factor is price. Harleys are expensive according to the New York Times, the average cost of a Harley is about twenty thousand dollars, in addition, they are not practical vehicles to get around and often end up becoming expensive toys, which leads to the third factor. and the final problem: the Harley-Davidson brand simply hasn't captivated Millennials the same way it did Baby Boomers, and the Baby Boomers who helped the brand thrive also burdened the company with the reputation that Harleys are only for middle-aged white men, trapping the company between brand loyalists and future growth, but Harley-Davidson won't go down without a fight.

The person in charge of solving these problems is Harley CEO Matt Levitic. He has the most difficult job in the world. He has the option to just sit back and get by. slow erosion, but he has decided that he is going to take advantage of this opportunity. I think it is prudent to try to ensure a better future. One way Levitic is doing this is with the Harley-Davidson Buyback Program, which is a program that Harley offers on their entry-level motorcycle known as the Sportster where you can buy a newer Sportster and trade it in within a year and Get every dollar you spent buying a bike on an upgrade.

It's a great way to get your feet wet and then upgrade to something that suits you better afterwards. You more or less realize that under levitic the company is focusing on reaching new riders When Business Insider reached out to Harley-Davidson for comment, a representative sent a statement about the company's current strategy that focuses on expanding its global market and launch new products like electric bikes and smaller models, but right now there is another obstacle in Harley's way: we will have a 25 percent tariff on foreign steel and a 10 percent tariff on foreign aluminum when the product crosses our borders, meaning it is now more expensive to produce. motorcycles in the United States, in response, the European Union introduced a retaliatory tariff on American products, including Bourbon and motorcycles, which, the New York Times reported, would have made motorcycles about two thousand two hundred dollars more expensive in Europe to avoid the duty.

Harley continued to move manufacturing to other Countries where Trump and some of Harley's biggest customers didn't appreciate Harley Davidson please build those beautiful motorcycles in the USA please ok don't get cute on us In the contemporary industrial economy, you don't build the motorcycles in the US and put them on. a ship and ship them to where you want to sell them, you make them at the point of sale, that way they can properly align with the market with all of these factors at play, can Harley-Davidson grow their business while protecting their brand? They are stuck, but They are stuck with a not-unpleasant problem, which is that even though they are stagnant, they can still make a lot of money from the stagnation.

You know, they still control a large percentage of the market and they can use that control of the market. and the products they sell on it to generate very substantial profits and share those profits with their investors and Harley-Davidson can then use those profits to reinvest in the business and try new things. The brand value that Harley has is infinitely valuable, it's amazing, but who knows if that will be enough