The restructuring of KTM’s owner has reached a new plateau with the laying-off of 500 employees at KTM AG. This lay-off was announced on the same day as the parent company of motorcycle brands KTM, Husqvarna and GASGAS changed its name from Pierer Mobility AG to Bajaj Mobility AG. Bajaj is now the controlling owner of the group that owns all three brands.
Here is the press release from Bajaj Mobility AG:
As part of an efficiency program, KTM AG is implementing difficult but necessary measures to continue the successful new start of 2025 following the insolvency of KTM AG at the end of 2024. The aim is to sustainably strengthen competitiveness by reducing fixed costs, streamlining structures, focusing the product and project portfolio, and optimizing our international site and leadership network. As part of this necessary realignment, a reduction of around 500 employees – predominantly in salaried positions and middle management – is unavoidable. In addition, the required early warning notifications pursuant to Section 45a of the Austrian Labor Market Promotion Act (AMFG) will be submitted to the competent Public Employment Service (AMS). The headcount as of December 31, 2025, amounted to 3,794 employees.
“This reduction in positions is a difficult but necessary decision to lower our costs, slim down structures, and thereby place the company on a stable footing for the long term,” said CEO Gottfried Neumeister. “We are reducing complexity across all areas—for example in our model range, in IT, and also in the organization of our departments, particularly by removing one management layer.” All measures are taken with a clear focus on the Motorcycles segment with the three core brands KTM, GASGAS, and Husqvarna.
In 2025, the company had already divested its bicycle business with the sale of FELT Bicycles. The termination of the distribution of CFMOTO and the sale of MV Agusta and X-Bow marked further milestones in the realignment. With a smaller core team in the future and significantly lower structural costs, KTM AG is pursuing its goal of simplification and focus in order to once again become one of the world’s leading motorcycle manufacturers.
With Bajaj Auto International Holdings B.V. as a strong majority shareholder, Bajaj Mobility AG has solid support in accompanying the rightsizing in Austria and worldwide. This is a clear signal that KTM will continue to be positioned as a strong international brand. In 2025, KTM achieved record successes in motorsport with 29 championship titles. With the consistent implementation of cost reductions, economic improvements will also be realized in 2026. Customer and dealer confidence in KTM became clearly evident in the second half of 2025 through inventory reductions, which were carried out faster than expected due to strong demand.
Hellooo, anybody there ?
Wazzup ?
Only us chickens…
Good enough for government work.
Cluck X 2
Ski chicken here. New super rare boards this year, only 100 pair on earth. Sad really. Good skis. J Skis Engineer Special Prototype.
Have you checked out their product lineup? They might sell a zillion of what they make. But honestly the home appliances intrest me more that the bikes, scooters and three wheelers. If you just look at who made what one would question why KTM would what any part of Bajaj. The Bajaj lineup looks pretty small potatoes. From the looks of things you would never guess that Bajaj was little more than a couple of small factories cranking out tiddlers and blenders. But they have a huge market and KTM made some huge mistakes. So here we are.
Whatever. KTM fuel injected all their two strokes and ride by wired pretty much everything else. They became as interesting to me an Harley’s new for 2026 lineup. Which is right up there with a bad case of athletes foot,
Next!
What a mess.
As for me KTM is a net zero brand. Too bad, they had some snappy cycles even with QA issues, and they were as far from UJM as possible.
Pee Sss.
I love how all these Corporate Restructuring announcements start with dumping the upper level white color peeps, but never mention the hit worker bees always take. Oh well.
Don’t worry, the Austrian executives will soon be gone, too, and Bajaj will run the business 100% from India. No need to have expensive western executives draining the value from the brand, when they can drain it themselves from India. Bajaj can then take the nice new KTM-financed manufacturing facilities and technologies and apply them to their own India brands. KTM, Huskvarna, GASGAS in five years? Never heard of ’em…
Maybe they will dump GasGas. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that GasGas was known only to trials riders. KTM and especially Husqvarna are much older brands. Old brand names are valuable. Ask Polaris. Victory wasn’t doing so well. Buying the Indian brand not only gave the a more recognizable name to put on the tank. It also gave them a styling direction. I kind of wonder how much money they made selling it. They must have decided to stick to producing things that are inherently stable and require no skill to operate.
Bajaj at least has some experience in producing motor products. They saw what the Indian and Husqvarna badges did for sales. I doubt they would ditch all of their newly acquired badges. I’d bet on seeing some red Husqvarna street legal retros with chrome panels on the gas tanks before too long. Funny KTM never thought of that. 701 retro Husky? Bang! Instant winner. Bajaj has to know about Enfield.
Indian on the other hand. I feel is destined for another dip into the dust bin of history. Triumph is about the only example of a money person making a successful go at motorsports in anything like the recent past.
Will be interesting to see what happens in terms of technology and production. Would imagine there will be plenty of parts being made in India with cheaper labor rates. Not sure how the worlds motorcyclists will perceive this? Now that I’m retired and in my new home I can go bike shopping. Wuz looking at the Husqvarna 701 enduro, 701 SM or Yamaha Tenere for a around town and exploring bike. Have a local Yamaha Dealer while Euro brands are about a hour away. Guess whether Blue or grey is my next quandary….???
I can accept the accuracy if the rebrand. But I don’t really think that it’s going to do them a lot of favors.
It had to change to something . Pierer is the name of a man who’s no longer involved. It’s also easy to look at this from an American perspective but we’re small potatoes to the motorcycle market. Bajaj is very big globally.