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Harley-Davidson Street 500 Helps the MoCo Outsell Honda in Australia

So it came the day when Honda must bow the head in recognition, in front of the Harley Street 500. It sounds a bit wacky maybe, but this is how things have happened in Australia, one of the markets that receives Harley's smallest motorcycle.
Harley-Davidson Street 500 1 photo
Photo: Harley-Davidson
Thanks to the introduction of the Street 500, Harley's market share in the road bike segment in Australia exploded and now sits at a whopping 21.1 %. No further than a couple of years ago, such a situation was not only inconceivable, but also borderline hilarious.

Still, Honda now accounts for only 18.4 % of the Australian road bike sales, for the same six-month period this year. Milwaukee sold 745 Street 500 bikes in Oz through June 2015, compared to Yamaha pushing 701 MT-07 units, while only 564 customers went for Honda's CBR500R.

The Softail Breakout is the best-selling Harley in Australia

Despite being the star of Harley's sales boost in Oz, the Street 500 is not the best-selling machine in this market, being surpassed by the Softail Breakout, which was sold in 765 units.

Topping the sales charts we will find a Honda, with 1123 Honda CTX1300 sold, followed by the Kawasaki Ninja 300, of which 1096 found a new home.

According to visordown, BMW's crown jewel, the R1200GS only sold 213 units, being passed by a lot of other less famous bikes. With the Australian market still centered on off-road machines, it's still the Japanese manufacturers that hold the top positions in overall sales, with Honda firmly at 24.6%, followed by Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki and only then Harley.

It will be interesting to see how the Street 500 will perform in other markets, even though the overall image will be a bit truncated by the fact that not all the markets that are traditionally taken into consideration when it comes to figures will receive it.
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