At this point I assume everyone in the ADV space has heard the news, Pierer Mobility Group, KTM’s parent company, is struggling. There are a number of factors at play here, economic compression, growing inventory, questionable camshaft reliability, and the part I want to address, brand identity.
The logistics and financial situations are a constant battle; companies must ride the waves of the economic cycle. Certainly, the company should be making wiser decisions, like creating more realistic manufacturing targets, and tighter quality controls. Still, to right the ship, most of Pierer’s issues stem from lack of differentiation between the brands; there are simply too many roosters in the hen house.
Pierer bought the Husqvarna moniker in 2013 and then went on to purchase the GasGas label in 2019. If you walk into a dealer under Pierer’s umbrella today, you may see all three of these brands in the same showroom. For the casual buyer, you might say that you can now buy a KTM in orange, white, or red plastics. The previous statement is technically untrue, there are nuanced differences between each brand, especially when looking at the street legal options, but the premise is the same. If you’re an amateur rider looking for a dirt bike, the flavors aren’t that diverse across brands. As it stands today, KTM offers over 17 different off-road-only models aimed at adult riders, when you expand these offerings to 2 other brands, that’s an incredible amount of duplicate inventory to maintain.
Based on what I’ve heard from my local dealers, Pieier is attempting to utilize KTM as the staple performance machine, Husqvarna as their “premium” offering, and “GasGas” as their most “fun and accessible” motorcycle. I understand the marketing lingo behind these strategies, and I agree with them. Unfortunately, I think engineers, accountants, and marketing managers have failed to make these differentiations a reality. If I may, I’d like to suggest some changes.
KTM: Race Heritage
KTM has been serving up orange victory Koolaid in the Dakar Rally since 2001, and finally clinching a Motorcross 450 Championship in 2012. Today KTM is a staple in every off-road segment and is arguably the reason we can still buy a 2-stroke motorcycle in the U.S. & Europe.
KTM’s focus should be thoroughbred off-road machines, with some performance adventure machines in the mix. Today’s flavor of motocross and hare scramble machines are exactly where they should be, along with the KTM 890 Adventure, and 890 Adventure Rally bikes. The early news about the revised KTM 390 Adventure also fits well into this new vision. Ultimately the message should be, riders that want a “woods or track weapon”, buy KTM.
KTM target customer
- Motocross racing
- Cross-country racing
- Performance off-road Adventure
GasGas: Rugged Off-road for everyone
For folks unfamiliar, GasGas originated in Spain. Trials has been the bread and butter for GasGas since the 90s, while their victories also include Enduro championships in the same era. GasGas’s heritage has been about tackling tough terrain, not so much about speed or winning on tracks. That experience, combined with affordability and ease of ownership should be the GasGas benchmark. If riders are interested in riding trials, enduro or hard enduro, they should be browsing the red bikes. Considering that “rugged” is the spirit of GasGas, I also think they should be offering trail bikes and dual-sport machines for prospective buyers; reliable bikes that are meant to take incredible punishment, even if (perhaps especially if) they’re in novice hands. If orange bikes are the thoroughbred race horses, the red bikes are mules meant to go anywhere.
GasGas target customer
- Trials
- Enduro
- Hard Enduro
- Rugged Trail Bikes
- Dual-Sport
Husqvarna: Premium Technology, comfort, and performance
Husqvarna was originally a Swedish company, and interestingly enough, has roots in grand prix racing that dates back to the 30s. Considering Pierer’s current model of “Premium”, and the fact that Husqvarna actually has the longest heritage of all three brands, it seems fitting that Husqvarna should be the bread-winner with respect to emerging technology, premium components, and rider creature comforts. In line with the new Norden 901 Expedition, I think Husky should take over the responsibility of the new 1300 adventure platform from KTM. While not to belittle Husqvarna’s race pedigree, it unfortunately hallows in comparison to KTMs more recent victories, and makes more sense for KTM to keep the hard adventure segment, while leaving the premium “touring” buyers to chase after the white horses. That said, I do think it’s worth putting “special edition” models under the Husky logo; accounting for Graham Jarvis and Billy Bolt’s exploits, special edition Erzberg and 6-days Husqvarnas make sense (I know, Mani is still a beast).
Lastly, Husky should be the street bike brand. Husky re-emerged from Pierer with the Svartpilen and Vitpilen, and should continue on that journey, unchained from the styling and engineering choices dominated by off-road industry. KTM was known for its dirt bikes for a long time. Considering current damage to brand reputation, and the fact that others have suggested “KTM is a dirt bike brand with a street bike problem”, let Husky usurp KTM and offer premium road bikes in a demographic that is unquestionably distinct from the off-road community. I’m not exactly sure how to handle it in MotoGP, but it seems more applicable to put the “Motorcycle Grand Prix” brand back into premier class MotoGP rather than KTM. I’ll take that further, that is may even make more sense for Pierer to jettison MotoGP, and focus on World Superbike; albeit, that’s well outside of my wheelhouse of expertise.
Husqvarna target customer
- Road Racing
- Touring
- Adventure Touring
- Street
- Special Editions
Without a doubt, these changes cost money; money that Pierer is already saying it needs to stay solvent. Assuming they can stop the bleeding, I still believe these changes are necessary to keep all three brands afloat. Circa 2008, General Motors was fighting this same battle. Pontiac was among the brands that didn’t survive the war. I have every reason to expect MV Agusta to be sold from under Pierer’s umbrella, but then again, I can also see the other red brand getting the axe first. Time will tell.
Assuming they stay solvent, do you think my plan will work? What changes would you propose?
Note: Hat tip to Chris Cope. These types of articles are his specialty, I hope he sees imitation is the finest form of flattery
Moto Adventurer 
As an aside, I don’t get the new marketing lingo. Words like accessible and approachable are just meaningless blabber. If the bike is priced low, then at best it is “affordable.” If it has a low seat height, then it has a low seat height. Better than saying those things, just tell me what it costs and how high it sits.
This is as bad as people blabbering about crank torque. Telling me a bike is torquey is as beneficial telling me nothing. What bike is this not said about? And the crank doesn’t touch the ground anyway, so it’s immaterial. You pick the torque at your rear wheel with your gear selector.
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I can’t argue with any of those points 🤣
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If anything, I would narrow the target audience for each brand even further, so that when you walk into a showroom where all three brands are represented, you know where to look. So KTM is the MX-brand, Husqvarna the ADV-brand, GasGas the trail & hard-enduro brand and MV Agusta could cover the sport, super-sport, street-racing segment. That would make four brands with no overlaps but the option to share developments, supply-chain etc..
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I like that approach even more. I agree that’s wise. Sadly, I didn’t lean that way because I struggle to see Pierer developing 3 new brands, they’re gonna struggle with 2. You’re right though, the overlap is absolutely the problem.
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Looks like streamlining the range won’t save the day. According to the public information issued by KTM / Pierer AG, they have filed for “restructuring”. This restructuring aims to avoid formal insolvency by implementing changes to improve financial stability or facilitate reorganisation. Insolvency is the inability of a company to pay its debts. In other words, if the restructuring fails in the next 90 days, formal insolvency will follow.
But Mr Pierer is not a victim of rising energy costs and stiff competition from anywhere, as he constantly claims. I’ve a strong feeling that poor management has led to the current situation. Mr Pierer could easily fix it himself, given that he is the eighth richest person in Austria, worth USD 1.6 billion. KTM is sitting on a stock of about 100,000(!) ready to ship motorcycles of all models (resale value 1.4 billion USD) and has about 370 million USD in debt.
So if Mr Pierer would sell all brands but KTM (including WP suspension and other non-KTM-related assets he owns), he could save KTM. The problem is that he would have to sacrifice everything, knowing that he would no longer be the internationally celebrated manager he loved to be, and instead become the owner of just the “small” motorcycle manufacturer in Upper Austria that he once bought to save it from bankruptcy – I doubt he’ll go down that road.
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That is the catch right. The most passionate people build the most impressive things. Unfortunately, their eyes are often bigger than their stomachs.
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Without an influx of new riders from the EBike and scooter population, the student youth class or the “I give up on owning a car” group…the “Insurance too high car group” etc….You need recruits to wage a continuous war. I got it… Motorcycle Conscription/Draft. You MUST own and ride 2 bikes and Military service for 5 years before you can buy a car !!! Lets see if The Donald can help…
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Very well reasoned, well done. BUT I fear that the problems go much deeper than brands. The quality of the camshafts is horrible and for years they tried to simply deny the problem existed and hope it went away but that is totally not the way to run a serious company. So they have alienated many many customers who have suffered these failings or know somebody that has. I personally know a trained KTM tech in the UK who told us that they once investigated a brand new bike that overheated and when they stripped the engine it was discovered that the water pump was missing!!!!!!
Quality failings will always rebound on the company, sooner or later and so KTM is now paying the price. Ps they have recently acquired MV so lets see how that goes.
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Agreed. The quality and reputation hurdle is a big one. Unfortunately I suspected that’s an uninteresting topic to most people m (i.e. make better quality bikes), but that doesn’t diminish the importance. I just recorded a podcast about this topic last night, a much deeper conversation: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4aEYePgMiuZ1FMf562kNTb?si=4KDVRM7mQPuovG86OABa3w
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Denying can be found at almost any brand – that´s not KTM specific. A sort of insider-joke is that you get with every new KTM a bag with bolts and screws as you lose them as you go 🙂 So a missing waterpump sounds crazy – especially as the rider should have had warnings in the display …
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I don’t agree. Not at this level. They have class actions in the 🇺🇸 yet poor UK customers have had to pay!
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You just read the news right?https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/2024/november/ktm-announces-self-administration/
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My post was impressively timed I suppose, more news broke on the eve of me publishing this idea. We’ll see how it shakes out I guess.
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Very sad but…..
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Yes, very sad for the employees with Christmas around the corner. Overall though, I don’t think many will miss KTM. Customers looking for a replacement will be happy to be served by other brands with better quality, more reasonable prices and better customer service. The only problem I have with the demise of KTM is that Mr Pierer will most likely walk away with his billions unpunished, leaving behind ruins, rubble and destroyed livelihoods.
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Usually that is the way things go…….
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Great insights! Your breakdown of Pierer Mobility’s brand identity challenges and strategic repositioning suggestions is both well-researched and compelling—an excellent read for any ADV enthusiast. 🚀
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Your blog presents a compelling and insightful analysis of Pierer Mobility Group’s brand strategy, offering thoughtful suggestions that could guide the company toward a more distinct and successful future.
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