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The Ducati Panigale V4 was the world’s best-selling sportbike in 2018.
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6,100 units were sold out of a total of 9,700 Panigales.
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However, Ducati’s overall sales dropped 5% due to the slump in the American market.
Forget about the naysayers, the Ducati Panigale V4 proved to be the world’s best-selling sportbike in 2018.
In fact, Ducati was the leading sportbike manufacturer through selling 9,700 Panigale models. That figure corresponds to a 70% increase over 2017. Of those, 6,100 were the new Panigale V4 models. That is remarkable, considering the price of the bikes!
Hence, the Italian manufacturer now holds a 26% market share in the sportbike segment. Yes, 1 of 4 sportbikes is a Panigale.
On another hand, the Multistrada line-up also contributed to Ducati’s overall sales. 11,829 of the sport-tourers were sold in 2018. 6,569 of those were from the new Multistrada 1260 range – a 25% increase.
Unfortunately, Ducati’s overall global sales dropped by 5% to 53,004, which ended an eight-year streak of record sales. The reduction was due to the precipitous 9% drop in American motorcycle sales.
As such, America is no longer Ducati’s biggest market; handing over that title to Italy (4.5% up).
Other growing markets are China (up 23%), Spain (up 8%), Switzerland (up 2.2%) and Japan (up 2%).
The Italian manufacturer has 9 new models in 2019, all equipped with IMU-based traction control and cornering ABS. They are hoping the new bikes will drive up sales for the year.
