Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson, Inc. today reported net income down 43 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 to $42.2 million or 22 cents per diluted share. For the full year, net income was down 10.9 percent to $752.2 million or $3.69 per diluted share.
The company’s revenue fell 1.6 percent in the fourth quarter to $1.18 billion and for the full year it was down 3.7 percent to $5.99 billion.
Retail sales of Harley-Davidson motorcycles worldwide were 264,627, a decrease of 1.3 percent from 2014. There were 168,240 motorcycles sold in the United States, a drop of 1.7 percent. The Europe, Middle East and Africa region had the highest retail sales level at 43,287, a drop of 4.5 percent. Retail sales in the Asia Pacific region were 32,258, an increase of 7.3 percent.
The company announced it expects to ship between 269,000 and 274,000 motorcycles in 2016, an increase of between 1 percent and 3 percent from 2015.
The company announced plans in October to increase its marketing investment by $70 million in 2016 in an effort to drive demand. The initiative was to be focused on four areas, including increasing product and brand awareness, growing new ridership in the U.S., increasing and enhancing brand access, and accelerating the cadence and impact of new products.
“Our U.S. market share stabilized as we began to ramp up marketing investment, and as we lapped the initial impact of heightened competitiveness and price discounting that began late in the fourth quarter of 2014,” said Matt Levatich, Harley-Davidson president and chief executive officer.
