Mighty RX-1
08-13-2002, 11:50 AM
Building the most exciting snowmobiles in the industry pays off. While poor snow conditions during last winter slowed industry sled sales slightly and hurt the preseason performance of other manufacturers, Yamaha enjoyed one of its best Spring Power Surge sales events ever.
On the strength of the most innovative lineup in the sport, Yamaha's 2003 machines delivered a major impact to the sport of snowmobiling. Led by the groundbreaking RX1 models *the first high performance fourstroke snowmobiles in history and continuing the success of the SXViper line with the introduction of the SXViper Mountain, Yamaha sales stayed extremely strong this past spring.
"Yamaha just completed a very successful 2003 product launch," said Snowmobile Product Manager Mike Doughty. "In fact, our worldwide preseason sales matched our previous spring record set just last season."
Last season’s sales can be highly attributed to the all-new SX Viper model. Nearly 30% of the customers who bought the ’02 SX Viper switched from competing brands. By Yamaha changing the be-everything, do-everything mentality and focusing on one strong model in the highest segment of snowmobiling, they were able to take their position from last place to first place within one season. Truly a Cinderella story.
This season’s success is a very similar scenario. Yamaha recognized it was losing market share with the SRX in the high performance category and for ’03 have focused its attention to building an all-new high performance snowmobile – and do it with four stroke power. Targeting the typical snowmobiler, the RX1, RX1 ER and RX1 Mountain snowmobiles have a broad based appeal. Interest in the RX1's superb fourstroke engine performance, innovative chassis design and impressive styling cut across geographical boundaries, age brackets and riding styles *the RX1 models are a hit with casual trail riders and performance enthusiasts alike. It would be no surprise to find the RX-1 outselling all other performance models for ’03 by the end of the season.
In fact, many snowmobilers switched brands to buy the RX1. On average, 15 percent of all snowmobilers change brands when they buy a new snowmobile. The RX1 blew that away. An incredible 40 percent of RX1 customers came from other brands. Of those buyers, 63 percent had never owned a Yamaha snowmobile before. The RX1 provided a strong reason to buy a Yamaha – for many, their first.
"We are very pleased with our snowmobile business," said Doughty. "We're coming off of a great spring, we have new and exciting snowmobiles to sell this fall and Yamaha dealers are excited about our snowmobile business direction. We again plan to sell out early *it's good for our dealers, good for our industry and allows us to continue building our momentum."
This focused attention to one targeted class of sleds has proved very successful to Yamaha and will likely be repeated in seasons to come. The engineering know-how and determination have proved once again that when it comes to providing the customer with what they want, there is no such word as “impossible”.
On the strength of the most innovative lineup in the sport, Yamaha's 2003 machines delivered a major impact to the sport of snowmobiling. Led by the groundbreaking RX1 models *the first high performance fourstroke snowmobiles in history and continuing the success of the SXViper line with the introduction of the SXViper Mountain, Yamaha sales stayed extremely strong this past spring.
"Yamaha just completed a very successful 2003 product launch," said Snowmobile Product Manager Mike Doughty. "In fact, our worldwide preseason sales matched our previous spring record set just last season."
Last season’s sales can be highly attributed to the all-new SX Viper model. Nearly 30% of the customers who bought the ’02 SX Viper switched from competing brands. By Yamaha changing the be-everything, do-everything mentality and focusing on one strong model in the highest segment of snowmobiling, they were able to take their position from last place to first place within one season. Truly a Cinderella story.
This season’s success is a very similar scenario. Yamaha recognized it was losing market share with the SRX in the high performance category and for ’03 have focused its attention to building an all-new high performance snowmobile – and do it with four stroke power. Targeting the typical snowmobiler, the RX1, RX1 ER and RX1 Mountain snowmobiles have a broad based appeal. Interest in the RX1's superb fourstroke engine performance, innovative chassis design and impressive styling cut across geographical boundaries, age brackets and riding styles *the RX1 models are a hit with casual trail riders and performance enthusiasts alike. It would be no surprise to find the RX-1 outselling all other performance models for ’03 by the end of the season.
In fact, many snowmobilers switched brands to buy the RX1. On average, 15 percent of all snowmobilers change brands when they buy a new snowmobile. The RX1 blew that away. An incredible 40 percent of RX1 customers came from other brands. Of those buyers, 63 percent had never owned a Yamaha snowmobile before. The RX1 provided a strong reason to buy a Yamaha – for many, their first.
"We are very pleased with our snowmobile business," said Doughty. "We're coming off of a great spring, we have new and exciting snowmobiles to sell this fall and Yamaha dealers are excited about our snowmobile business direction. We again plan to sell out early *it's good for our dealers, good for our industry and allows us to continue building our momentum."
This focused attention to one targeted class of sleds has proved very successful to Yamaha and will likely be repeated in seasons to come. The engineering know-how and determination have proved once again that when it comes to providing the customer with what they want, there is no such word as “impossible”.