Mercury swings focus to high-end boating

In about a fortnight, Brunswick Corp, Mercury’s owner, will demonstrate the newly forged technology at an investor day in New York.

According to David Foulkes, Brunswick Corp’s Chief Executive, the new technology – which aims to make life much easier for boat owners – is a sign that in the wake of rising interest rates and rampant inflation, there has been a shift in the type of consumer that the marine product group needs to win over.

“Obviously, we’ve got some consumer headwinds that we’re having to work our way through, but the businesses are still performing very well,” Foulkes, in Australia last week to attend the 2023 Sydney International Boat Show, told boatsales.

“What we’re talking about [with consumer headwinds] is two things,” Foulkes said. “I think interest rates, that’s affected the value buyer more than the premium buyer, so we’re seeing large boats, premium boats basically flat to last year, but value [boats] go under a bit more pressure.”

According to Foulkes, the premium boat market has held up well as buyers tended to borrow less money and have more disposable income, while the value end of the market was under more pressure from tightening consumer finance.

That in turn has resulted in Mercury shifting focus to high-horsepower engines and the chance to kick-start and service the repower market – and the technology that goes hand-in-hand with the segment.

“When you think about strength in the premium and large boats, that kind of equates to Mercury’s high-horsepower outboards,” Foulkes said.

“It also equates to some of our high-end electronic radar systems; you know, Simrad displays, those kinds of things. 

“So we’ve kind of leaned up quite a lot into the premium part of the market with opening a second Boston Whaler facility, which is doing very well, adding capacity and Mercury high-horsepower outboard engines to service new OEM customers in addition to the retail market and international markets, and then investing in some of the higher technology components that are more relevant to larger boats. 

“Generally it’s clear around the world that the trend of, you know, the wealthy getting somewhat wealthier is something we have to observe.”

That said, Foulkes said Brunswick Corp would always try to provide many entry points for people to get into boating. 

“We make boats for $5000. We make boats for, you know, a million dollars. So we’d like to be able to get everybody into boating. But this current market is definitely seeing more strength in premium than the value,” he said.

Brunswick Corp teased its upcoming autonomous boating technology via a static display at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas but has had a working prototype on the water since last year.

The prototype was developed by Brunswick’s Boat Group Technology Centre as part of its ACES (Autonomy, Connectivity, Electrification and Shared access) program for developing new user-friendly boat technology.

While the technology is being developed for larger boats that use Mercury’s Joystick Piloting for Outboards system, the ACES team is attempting to make it scalable so that it will work with smaller boats as well as large ones.