Canada is a special market for the Japanese motorcycle manufacturers – many of them announced some products for Canada that have yet to be made available in the U. S. Yamaha is bringing the new Fazer 8 and FZ8 into the country, while Kawasaki announced it will offer the new Ninja 400R. But before you start thinking Canada is the land of milk and honey, Honda brings some sobering news about canadian motorcycle industry.
Honda has image problems
Warren Milner, Honda Canada’s senior marketing manager told journalists at a presentation in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, „As far as we’re concerned, the motorcycle business (in Canada) is bankrupt. We’ve hit rock bottom, so now we’re going to rebuild.” Milner goes on to say the problem also effects the three Japanese rivals, who he claims “are losing huge money. And projections for the next two years are that they’ll lose huge money.” The source of Honda Canada’s problems has been attributed to the fact the company been selling machines at greatly reduced prices in order to shift ever-increasing stock left over due to the recession. Experts also believe the company policy of selling motorcycles through a network of car franchises is a major mistake: “The product itself is not the problem,” said Milner. There are some holes in the lineup, but that’s easy to fix. They don’t like Powerhouse and they don’t like ‘Honda’. They feel it’s run by a bunch of car people who don’t care about motorcycles. We have an image problem.”
There are holes in Honda's canadian lineup
So look for campaigns coming up to try to change that image problem. They’ll be intensive campaigns, too, and tough to miss, because as Milner says, “It’s over unless we can do this.”
