With demand well outpacing supply, boat sales during the last several months have entered a predictable pattern.
Customer demand has remained steady, but the kinks in the global supply chain have the industry estimating inventory replenishment cycles to last well into next year, perhaps into late 2023.
“Raw demand is tremendously strong. What we’re really seeing is constrained supply,” Brunswick Corp. CEO David Foulkes told CNBC’s Jim Kramer on Mad Money, when Brunswick posted its fifth consecutive record quarter. “Even though we’re increasing capacity … it’s probably going to be three years before we really get field inventory levels back to where they should be.”
The shortage of product is reflected in the data. Preliminary numbers from Statistical Surveys, a Michigan firm that tracks new-boat registrations, confirms that September continued the pattern of constricted sales for the fifth consecutive month.
Total registrations, representing 35 states or about 75 percent of the U.S. boating market, were down 17 percent for the month, with the main powerboat segments dropping 26 percent compared with September 2020.
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