TheScooterScoop

If you’d talked to anyone selling scooters one year ago, they should have been ecstatic. New unit sales of scooters were up nearly 80 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, with $4-per-gallon pump prices driving cost-conscious consumers to two-wheels in droves.

The MIC just released first quarter sales results for 2009, and results across the board aren’t exactly stellar, especially in the scooter segment: New unit sales across all segments of powersports were down 31.7 percent for the first three months of 2009, while scooters were down 36.7 percent, from 8,402 units in the year-ago quarter to 5,322 in 2009.

While those numbers might make you rethink taking on a scooter line in this precarious market, I’m still of the opinion that as the market begins to recover, scooters are going to represent a growing piece of the pie.

One important thing to remember is that the MIC figures only take into consideration the sales of a few major OEMs. While the Italian and Japanese OEMs do account for a great number of the scooters sold in the U.S., one need only stroll the aisles of Dealer Expo to see the great number of import brands from other Asian nations that aren’t being tallied by the MIC. These units in general sell at much lower price points than the units from the major OEMs, and many brands have begun to rival the big boys when it comes to quality.