MILWAUKEE- The final earnings report for Harley-Davidson is a bit of a mixed bag for the company and its investors.
Harley reporting a drop in overall sales were down 1.4% for the quarter and 4.3% on the year. Those numbers include a drop in US sales 3.1% on the quarter and 5.2% on the year. For the US market, the drop in sales marked the 12th consecutive quarter in which sales were on the decline. Sales in Asia-Pacific were up more than 6%, helping buoy overall sales by .5% during the 4th quarter of 2019.
Despite less than enthusiastic sales numbers, the company reported earnings of $13.5 million, or nice cents per share during Q4. Overall on the year the company earned just over $423-million, down from $531-million in 2018.
The company was able to save money by opening up their manufacturing plant in Thailand while shuttering its Kansas City plant and merging some of those employees to their facility in York, Pennsylvania.