KTM is going bankrupt?

Interestingly, despite the difficult situation, the brand is not disappearing from the MotoGP paddock or the Dakar Rally.

Exactly. The company has made some cuts and intends to return to its roots, i.e. to focus as much as possible on the KTM brand in the world of motorsport. After all, its slogan is READY TO RACE. Therefore, among other things, the decision was made to withdraw the factory GASGAS team from MotoGP, Husqvarna from Moto2, and the GASGAS and Husqvarna teams from starting in Dakar. However, there will be no shortage of orange teams in MotoGP and Dakar! For me, this is also a clear signal that if things were really bad at KTM - as many headlines scream, e.g. that it's over - the company would not allow itself to start in such an expensive discipline as MotoGP.

In my opinion, one of the main reasons is the post-covid hurray-optimism. During the pandemic, people have significantly limited their travel. They did not go on vacation like every year, which left them with an additional household budget and they began to look more willingly for forms of personal entertainment, such as bicycles or motorcycles.

In order to relieve stress from the situation related to COVID and to relieve pressure - many people decided on such hobbies and bought new equipment. I think that the sales increases in this period were considered by KTM strategists as a real, permanent trend, and not a deviation from the trend, which is why they wrongly assumed similarly dynamic sales increases for the following years and adjusted production plans to this. Unfortunately, in 2023 KTM probably did not pay attention to how many motorcycles were reaching the market to end customers, and only relied on orders placed to the factory by dealers in individual markets. They were eager to buy motorcycles, also riding on a wave of optimism - just like KTM strategists. Unfortunately, the unexpected outbreak of war in Ukraine and the associated rapid increase in energy costs caused strong inflation and an increase in production costs, which was already awaiting European economies due to the printing of money as part of the Covid aid. Customers began to save, interest rates rose and the cost of mortgages or leasing began to be a heavy burden for many, as did the increase in energy bills. All this caused budgets for hobbies to shrink or disappear altogether, and therefore for motorcycles, and slowed down the growth in sales of new motorcycles.