Escalating boat sales fueled by the coronavirus pandemic have created nationwide shortages of vessels in the U.S. as people clamored to find socially-distanced activities to engage in outside of their homes.
Boat sales, as well as the demand for marine products and services, reached $47 billion, a 9 percent increase over 2019, according to the fourth-quarter report by the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) on Friday (March 19).
“Despite the challenges marine manufacturers faced in 2020, optimism among marine CEOs was strong in Q4 as the industry experienced a 13-year record increase in boat sales,” according to Vicky Yu, senior director of business intelligence for NMMA.
Yu added that the boating industry continues to take a hit from the pandemic due to weather conditions and supply chain snags. But overall, “Q4 data show upticks in hiring and investments in capital expenditures” — all a yardstick for increased production to meet heightened demand for new boats.
All told, boat sales surged in 2020 as remote work and flexible schedules became the norm during the COVID-19 pandemic that gripped the country. The wait time for new boats surged from several weeks to several months, and more first-time buyers than ever have joined in. There are no indicators that the heightened demand will slow in 2021, CNBC reported.
New boat sales were up 59 percent in May 2020 compared to April, and up 19 percent compared to May 2019. Yacht sales were also up in 2020, with a 51 percent increase in sales in the U.S. during the same month.
“There’s still not a lot of certainty in terms of when the economy’s going to reopen with the vaccine rollout, so the demand that we saw last year will at least continue into this year, and that’s going to continue to drive production for the manufacturer for at least a couple of years,” Eric Wold, an analyst at B. Riley, told CNBC.
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