AUTOFORUM - Informed and innovative

AMID motorcycle market comment – Year ended December 2025

Jan 26, 2026 Arnold Olivier, AMID


AMID motorcycle market comment – Year ended December 2025

 

By Arnold Olivier, National Director, AMID

Predicting what the South African motorcycle market will do remains a dark art as a final and unexpected growth spurt in the last quarter of 2025 produced the best overall sales year since 2014, topping out at 43 144 units, and almost on par with 2013. This is a credible 14.5% growth compared to 2024, which was already a very good year. This after 3rd quarter YTD numbers suggested that 2025 will produce a modest 6% growth. As the commercial segment now makes up slightly more than 70% of the total market, what happens in this segment influences the overall market significantly.

 

Segment performance as usual remains a mixture of ups and downs. Small capacity commercial motorcycle and scooter volumes increased by 10%. Electric 2 and 3 wheeled motorcycle sales, which are essentially commercial units, continued to grow and is up 40% on the previous year. The leisure segment increased by an exceptional 22%, with the 250 to 500cc segments driving this growth with a 56% increase.

 

Larger capacity leisure motorcycles recorded a small decrease of 1.3%. Significantly, the sub-500cc leisure segment has now overtaken the 500cc+ segments in unit sales for the first time in many years. This can be attributed by several new entrants to this segment, a shift by consumers to more affordable machines but also aggressive price reductions on certain Brands/Models. Off-road motorcycle sales ended up 2.5% down year on year.

 

The Quad market increased by a massive 46%. A big portion of this growth is driven by the youth market, but utility quads and side-by-sides also performed very strongly.

 

Used motorcycle sales statistics recorded a decrease of 3.8% compared to 2024 but is up marginally compared to 2023. A large de-fleet and change of ownership occurred in the commercial space during 2024, creating an artificial blip in sales. This is not considered reflective of used motorcycle sales, which tend to be stable year on year in the region of 46 000 units annually.

 

Although some key economic indicators look positive at present and local elections later in the year may influence buyer sentiment negatively, the industry view is that the growth trend should continue for 2026, albeit more conservatively.

Back