Is Harley-Davidson Finally Selling to a Younger Customer?

Harley-Davidson appears to be at a crossroads, according to an article by James B. Kelleher, Of Reuters. Harley has been trying to push down the average age of its customers but whether it's working depends on who you ask. Here's an excerpt:

"Some background: In a recent interview, a top Harley-Davidson executive told Reuters that in 2012, for the first time in years, the average buyer of the company's bikes was not a baby boomer. For a brand defined by the emergence and, lately, the aging of the post-World War II cohort of consumers, that's a big deal — proof that the 110-year-old company is gaining traction with a new generation of riders. Yet its top global marketing guru, Mark-Hans Richer, continues to insist it's no big deal — even though investors have long wondered how Harley would survive as baby boomers, who embraced its bikes as totems of rebellion in the 1960s and 1970s and drove its growth in the ensuing decades, rode off into the sunset." -- James B. Kelleher, Of Reuters

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