KTM Production Restarts In Austria

KTM has officially restarted production at its Mattighofen and Munderfing facilities in Austria. This comes as a relief to the over 1,000 production employees whose future looked uncertain when the Austrian bikemaker filed for bankruptcy last year. A few months back, its Indian partner, Bajaj Auto, rescued it at the last moment after investing €800 million (₹8,063 crore). Apart from KTM, production for brands such as Husqvarna and GasGas has also resumed. 

"A special thank you goes to our employees, who, with their great commitment, flexibility, and solidarity, have made this restart possible over the past few months. Their dedication during one of the most challenging phases was and remains a key success factor for the company's continued development. The restart of production gives us the stability we need to now fully focus on quality, customer proximity, and further development," said KTM AG CEO Gottfried Neumeister. 

The company also announced that its supply chain has been reactivated as it was suspended due to pending dues, and it’s also hiring new talent in Europe. At one point, KTM was Europe’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, with close to 3,80,000 units manufactured in 2023. However, it was its overzealous production which led to its downfall, as there was a huge inventory of unsold bikes and quality issues in some of its bikes amplified its woes. KTM’s India operations, on the other hand, have been very stable with good domestic sales and exports. Talking about future products, the KTM 160 Duke is expected to go on sale soon in India, and so will be the KTM 390 SMC R.