To kick off February, both LiveWire and parent company/sometime production partner Harley-Davidson announced their Q4 2024 and full year 2024 financial information for their respective investors. And while things were pretty grim according to Harley's portion of the presentation, there's a somewhat bright spot to be seen in LiveWire's numbers.
To be absolutely clear, LiveWire still lost money in 2024, a lot of money, as it has since it first spun off from Harley at the beginning of 2022. And to further clarify, both LiveWire and Harley executives have repeatedly stressed that they expect to continue to lose money for the next few years for a number of reasons.
So this isn't unexpected, and absolutely doesn't come as a surprise.
But still, everything is relative, right? If you look at the numbers from that perspective, LiveWire didn't lose as much money in 2024 as it did in 2023. What kind of numbers are we talking about? In 2023, LiveWire posted a consolidated operating income loss of $116 million, and a net loss (including revenue from both its LiveWire and its StaCyc divisions) of $109.6 million.
By contrast, in 2024, LiveWire posted a consolidated operating income loss of just $110.4 million, and a net loss of $93.9 million. The red, it isn't quite as dark. Progress? Progress!
We'll have to wait until FY2025 has concluded to get a better read on whether this is upward movement is becoming a trend. For what it's worth, we hope so. While it might seem like we report a lot of bad news with regard to both LiveWire and Harley (and KTM, for that matter), we want all of them to succeed. Why? Because we want a healthy powersports industry, with vehicles and competition and plenty of things to discuss and analyze for years to come. Period.
How did LiveWire's 2024 results break down on a quarterly basis? Take a look. It stayed pretty even on a quarterly basis, with mild fluctuations around the -$25M mark per quarter.
What about actual LiveWire and StaCyc bike sales?
So glad you asked. StaCyc stayed pretty steady for the first few quarters of 2024, but nearly tripled sales in Q4 of 2024. That's not terribly surprising; balance bikes for kids make a great gift for the holidays, and there are a whole lot of holidays in Q4 of every year.
We can't say for certain that anyone is gifting LiveWires for the holidays at the same rate that families are likely gifting StaCycs, but we can see that LiveWire motorcycle sales nearly doubled in Q4 of 2024 as compared to each of the first three quarters of the year. So, maybe Santa likes electrics?
It's a company that's been dealing with teething pains, for sure. And with the current headwinds facing US-based EVs of all kinds thanks to shifts in governments, tariff threats, and more, the future is anything but certain.
How does LiveWire see its 2025 shaping up, though?
According to its official 2025 Financial Outlook, which it also released as part of its 2024 annual report, it sees increased LiveWire motorcycle unit sales between 1,000 and 1,500 units as being attainable in 2025. Additionally, the LiveWire Group is forecasting a 2025 operating loss of $70 to $80 million. If those numbers bear out, that would be additional, significant moves toward both growth and eventual profitability. Will it work out? That's not clear at this point, but RideApart will definitely be keeping an eye on how it all shakes out.
