HD customer base is aging out and dying off plus Polaris Indian is eating their lunch with innovative desirable product that impinges upon their place in the market, some gorgeous retro-modern cruisers that beat the pants off of HD in every meaningful way. They need to wake up and raid Indian for some talent before they shuffle off into the sunset, that would be a pity. They are a heritage domestic brand with a grand history. Shame to lose that, ball’s in their court on that though.
Harley's share of the domestic heavyweight motorcycle market was 53% last year. Indian's was around 10%, but that's mostly because Victory shutdown.
Motorcycle sales in the US are down 9.2%. Harley's loss was 8%. Indian sales increased, yet Polaris' motorcycle sales were down even more than Harley at 14%.
As for innovation, Harley did introduce an entire mid-weight line for the millennials and are supposedly working on electric motorcycles. Also, their big twin engine is all new and gets rave reviews.
So to recap, Harley has over half the heavy weight market, is attempting to appeal to millenials, saw their sales dip at lesser rate than average (unlike Polaris). And I might want to add, Harley's sales are up in Europe.