Yamaha’s New Product Introduction
is Designed to be a Game Changer
BY ANDY ADAMS
BOATING INDUSTRY CANADA traveled to
Tennessee to attend the press introduction of Yamaha’s 2010 product lineup,
the largest and broadest in Yamaha’s history according to Martin Peters, manager of communications for the American
Yamaha Marine group. During the opening presentation, he introduced Phil
Dyskow, president of the Yamaha Marine
group, who opened with some research.
This included gross domestic product
(GDP) data for the United States.
While 2009 is expected to come in at
a GDP of - 2.7%, things are expected to
improve in 2010 to 1.5% rising to 2.8%
in 2011. Dyskow noted that above a
GDP growth rate of 2.0%, the US marine
industry tends to grow. He said that the
US has 70 million boaters and approximately 15 million registered boats.
Dyskow is calling for a return to growth
in 2010 in the US boating market, but
not to 2007 levels.
He also noted that he expected sales
would look very different going forward.
Dyskow stated that 2009 was character-
ized by distress sales and mentioned that
Yamaha had elected to delay their new
product introductions for a time in order
to mount an aggressive series of retail
promotions to help dealers clear out
inventory in the pipeline.
Perhaps his most important point
was that new products are a very important part of the business. New products
create a strong reason for a consumer to
buy. New products are necessary to meet
the expectations of demanding consumers.
