“There’s still the uncertainty around what’s going to happen on April 2, and I think that is influencing consumer behaviour,” said chief financial officer Sébastien Martel, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose 25% tariffs on trade partners next week.
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The U.S. has already hit Canada and Mexico with 25% levies on goods that are not compliant with the North American free trade pact. The reprieve Trump granted on March 6 for items that do comply—a climbdown from blanket tariffs rolled out two days earlier—is also set to expire in a week.
Canada has struck back with its own duties on about $60 billion worth of American goods, and threatened tariffs on $95 billion more if the U.S. does not back down.
“It’s difficult to call. It’s been choppy, and obviously with the uncertainty created by all of this, the consumers are holding back,” Martel told analysts on a conference call Wednesday.
“That uncertainty is a bigger overhang than the potential opportunity of buying a product with no tariffs today. It says a lot about the how the consumer is feeling.”
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BRP’s Q4 earnings
BRP swung to a loss of $44.5 million in the fourth quarter, down from a $302.8-million profit a year earlier.
As consumers and dealers spent less, North American retail sales at BRP dropped 21% year-over-year in the quarter ended Jan. 31, largely due to lower demand for snowmobiles and market share loss in off-road vehicles.
Revenue from year-round products, which include side-by-side and all-terrain vehicles and account for more than half of total sales, decreased 17%. Retail sales of BRP’s three-wheeled motorcycles fell about 30%.
