Honda’s chief, Takeo Fakui, in his end-of-year speech, delivered some pretty bad news; confirming the F1 decision, announcing the delay or cancellation of several projected models, factory closures and salary cuts for seniour management, but, significantly, no announcement concerning MotoGp at all.
While this is not quite confirmation that Honda will be staying, a lot of the announcements once again reaffirmed the importance of motorcycles in Honda’s business strategy. Motorcycle sales were overall much stronger than Honda’s car sales, growing 12% where car sales were flat, and are expected to grow by another 10.5% next year, where Honda expects car sales to fall by 7% in the same period. Fukui was emphatic: “History shows that motorcycles remain strong in a difficult market environment and have always supported Honda in difficult times.”
So, breathe a sigh of relief.