The economic importance of motorcycles to Europe - technical report

Recent Release | 26 Apr 2022

The economic importance of motorcycles to Europe – technical report

Doug Godden

Lead Economist

This technical report has been prepared to accompany the main report for ACEM, entitled ‘The economic importance of motorcycles to Europe‘, published in September 2021.

The technical report explains the methodology used and sets out the results in greater detail than found in the main report.

Motorcycle-related activity supports €21.4 billion of output (GDP) across Europe a year, sustains 389,000 jobs, and generates €16.6 billion of tax revenues, according to research by Oxford Economics. This means that in 2019 economic activities associated with motorcycling generated more GDP, and employed more people, than the metropolitan area economies centred on Venice, Malaga, and Palma de Mallorca. The total tax impact would have been sufficient to cover the pay of 380,000 teachers, or some 6.5% of all European teachers.

Four-fifths of the total was accounted for by six countries, namely Italy (23%), Germany (20%), France (13%), the UK (11%), Spain (7%), and Austria (7%).

This report, commissioned by ACEM, the motorcycle industry in Europe, also investigates the international trade in motorcycles and parts. In 2019, manufacturers in the EU-27 and the UK sold €2.1 billion of these goods to non-European customers—so that exports accounted for 39% of their total sales by value. Even so, European countries had a trade deficit in these products, with imports totalling €4.5 billion. Large quantities are imported from Asian countries where European manufacturers face high import tariffs. These high custom duties protect their domestic markets by making European vehicles relatively more expensive.

Read the report

About the team

Our economic consulting team are world leaders in quantitative economic analysis, working with clients around the globe and across sectors to build models, forecast markets and evaluate interventions using state-of-the art techniques. The lead consultant on this project was: