Kymco Global sales recovered in 2023. Following the lower score in a decade hit in the previous year, in 2023 sales improved 12.1% at 390K. Great performance in East Europe and North America.
McD tracks new vehicles registrations across the World (over 85 countries), reporting data on calendar year. When you wish to compare data reported by us to those declared by the manufacturers, consider they usually report their “sales” (vehicles invoiced), which are usually different from “registrations”, accordingly with their fiscal year split.
Global Registrations Trend
Kymco is one of the biggest scooter specialist worldwide, with global sales steady growing in the last decade and an all-time sales record near half a million (not including powersport) established in 2017.
Having care to fully absorb the available capacity, the company exports one-third of production and is very dependent by the performance obtained in the domestic market, Taiwan, where it was the leader for the last decades, before to be overtaken by SYM, during the 2022.
Kymco performance in the last years has been declining hit by the domestic strong and successful attack suffered by SYM and by increased difficulties in the international markets, where new manufacturers approached the market, the most with electric vehicles, and with Indian big players in the process to expand their global coverage, gaining market share in the “value for money” segment, traditionally the reign of Kymco.
Consequently, Kymco global sales declined hitting in 2022 a negative peak for the last decade, falling below the 0.35 million. Fortunately, in 2023 the environment improved and Kymco was able to recover global sales, ending the year with 390.700 (+12.1%)
Sales are growing fast in East Europe (Turkey, Israel, Serbia, Macedonia, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Bosnia and Albania) with a robust +43.6% and are very positive in North America (+21.8%) and positive in the ASEAN (+5.1%).
In West Europe sales are steady (+0.1%) while in ASIA (China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea) are growing (+19.1%).
Brand Heritage
KYMCO stands for Kwang Yang Motor Company, headquartered in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. It has about 3.000 employees and produce more than 600,000 vehicles per year.
The company has established several production facilities abroad. Those are located in Indonesia (Jakarta), Malaysia (Petaling Java), China (Shanghai, Chengdu and Changsha) and Philippines (Bagumbayan, Taguig City).
Founded in 1964, KYMCO originally started out with technology transfer from Honda, Japan. Thanks to the technical know-how from Honda, KYMCO became one of Honda’s high quality overseas manufacturing facilities.
Over the next two decades, Honda increased its business interest in Kymco, becoming one of its significant shareholder. However, their strong relationship ended in the 2000, when Kymco started to move on its own feet.
Kymco celebrated its 50-year anniversary in 2014 hitting the milestone of 10 million scooters, motorcycles, e-bikes, side-by-sides and ATVs sold in 100 countries, with an annual sales revenue exceeding (US)$ 1 billion.
