Drawing on two years of data from roughly ~ 2500 motorcycle dealerships, Lightspeed can show, for all its brands, how much of the parts’ attachment revenue stays with the manufacturer’ s own parts business and how much goes to the aftermarket. The data is explored below.
36 • September 2026 • Powersports Business
MOTORCYCLE www. PowersportsBusiness. com
OE vs. Aftermarket: Which side is winning?
Drawing on two years of data from roughly ~ 2500 motorcycle dealerships, Lightspeed can show, for all its brands, how much of the parts’ attachment revenue stays with the manufacturer’ s own parts business and how much goes to the aftermarket. The data is explored below.
BY DANNY ORENDAIN
• OEM BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, LIGHTSPEED DMS
$ 700M +
In Parts Revenue
1M + Motorcycles sold
11M + Parts Attached
2M + Repair Orders
~ 2,500 Dealerships
55
Brands
Motorcycle parts only, and only parts tied to a specific motorcycle: fitted during service work or bought with the bike as part of the unit deal. Parts-counter sales, where a customer buys a part with no motorcycle involved, are excluded throughout.
For every dollar in parts that goes on motorcycle in the service department, how much is the OE manufacturer’ s and how much is the aftermarket’ s?
Lightspeed DMS sees the powersports parts business at a scale few can match, and that vantage point answers a question most manufacturers and suppliers can only hypothesize: of every dollar in parts that goes on a given brand of motorcycle, how much is the OE manufacturer’ s own and how much is the aftermarket’ s in the same showroom?
Start in the service bay, where the volume is largest and steadiest( Figure 1). Measured in parts revenue, the OE-to-aftermarket split runs a remarkably wide spectrum. In aggregate, off-road runs more aftermarket, 41 % of service-parts revenue against 32 % on the street, but that is mostly a mix effect rather than a difference in how any one brand behaves: Harley-Davidson alone accounts for 36 % of street service-parts revenue at just 26 % aftermarket, and setting it aside lifts the street figure to 36 %.
At the time of the unit sale, the field splits much harder( Figure 2). The Japanese brands pull away: on a Yamaha or a Suzuki, roughly 70 % of the street accessory revenue at delivery is aftermarket, and off-road Kawasaki and Yamaha run 67 and 65 %. Several premium and touring models move the opposite way and end up almost entirely OE, with Ducati at about 5 % aftermarket on the street and BMW, Triumph, and Ducati all in the single digits off-road. Same showroom, and a
ABOUT THE DATA
Lightspeed DMS aggregated dealer management system data, United States and Canada. Figures are on a dollar basis: each ratio is aftermarket parts revenue divided by total parts revenue, using extended retail. Ratios cover parts attached during customer-paid service and accessories attached when the motorcycle itself is sold, whether the dealer installs them or not; warranty and dealer setup are excluded.“ Street” includes three-wheelers;“ off-road” covers off-road and dual-sport motorcycles. No make-specific part exclusions are applied, so brands are compared on the same basis. Sale-lane samples are smaller than service, and thin cells are flagged on the charts. Year-over-year comparisons use revenue-weighted quarterly figures.
HOW WE TELL OE FROM AFTERMARKET
Parts are classified by where the dealer bought them, not by who made them. A part is OE when it came through the vehicle manufacturer’ s own parts program, on that manufacturer’ s part number; anything bought through an independent distributor is aftermarket. Corporate families count as OE, so Polaris-supplied Indian parts are OE. A Dunlop tire bought through Harley-Davidson is OE; the same Dunlop from an independent distributor is aftermarket. The ratio tracks which channel captures the parts dollar, not which brand ends up on the bike.