Motorcycle, Boat, and Other Motor Vehicle Dealers (United States)

NAICS 2022 code 44122 — a rollup primer for public- and private-market investors

1. Overview

This is the corner of retail where Americans buy the vehicles they use for fun and for work off the paved road and out on the water: motorcycles and off-road machines on one side, boats on the other. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) — the U.S. government's standard for grouping businesses — puts both under a single five-digit industry, 44122, which splits into two child industries: Boat Dealers (441222) and Motorcycle, ATV, and All Other Motor Vehicle Dealers (441227), where ATV means all-terrain vehicle.[1] Together they form roughly a $67 billion retail industry spread across about 10,900 store locations employing about 112,000 people.[2][3]

The two halves rhyme. Both sell big-ticket, discretionary, heavily financed vehicles; both make their thinnest margin on the new unit itself and their best, most durable money on the services that attach to it — parts, repair, and financing; both carry inventory on borrowed money and are therefore doubly exposed to interest rates.[8][10] But they differ in the ways an investor most cares about — relative size, who owns them, how concentrated they are, and how you can actually buy exposure — and that contrast is the point of this primer.

The short version: the powersports half (motorcycles, ATVs, side-by-sides, snowmobiles, personal watercraft) is the larger of the two but the more fragmented and harder to own publicly; the boat half is smaller but more consolidated, with two scaled public roll-ups rather than one struggling turnaround. Both are overwhelmingly private, family-owned businesses — which is exactly why consolidators exist in each.

2. What's inside — the two child industries and how they differ

NAICS 44122 is deliberately narrow. It captures dealers of recreational and off-highway vehicles — the retailers, not the factories — and excludes the big automotive codes next door: new cars (441110), used cars (441120), and recreational vehicles/motorhomes (441210) all sit outside it.[1] What's left divides cleanly into two children with genuinely different economics and ownership.

The contrast at a glance (federal figures; receipts from the 2022 Economic Census, locations from 2023 County Business Patterns):

Three differences deserve emphasis, because they run against intuition:

• The bigger child is the more fragmented one. Powersports (441227) is nearly twice the size of boat dealing by receipts, yet its top four firms control just 4.6% of sales versus 16.1% for boats.[4][5] Boat dealing has been rolled up further and faster, largely because two well-capitalized public buyers targeted it.
• The smaller child offers more public ways in. Boat retail has two scaled listed consolidators plus a micro-cap; powersports — despite being larger — has effectively one listed pure-play dealer, and it is a leveraged turnaround.[7][8][10] Size and investability point in opposite directions here.
• The direction of travel is similar, and it's downward-but-stabilizing on both sides. Both children surged in the pandemic, over-earned, and have spent 2024–2026 working off inventory as high rates bit. Neither is a growth story right now; both are consolidation-and-normalization stories.

One brand ties the two children together: Polaris builds Indian motorcycles and off-road vehicles that flow through 441227 dealers and pontoon boats (Bennington, Godfrey, Hurricane) that flow through 441222 dealers — a reminder that the same recreational-consumer cycle drives both.[15][16]

3. How big it is (this level's rollup figures)

Ground-truth federal figures for NAICS 44122. These come from two surveys and two years, so read them as a picture of scale, not a single financial statement.

A few reads. The average location turns roughly $6.2 million of sales with about 10 employees at an average wage near $57,000 — approximate, since it spreads 2022 receipts across 2023 headcounts.[2][3] The industry is strikingly unconcentrated: an HHI of 16.9 sits at the very bottom of the scale (the U.S. Small Business Administration, or SBA, and antitrust agencies treat anything under 1,500 as unconcentrated), and even the fifty largest firms together hold under a fifth of the market.[2] Almost every operator falls below the SBA's $40 million small-business line — a regulatory classification, not an estimate of typical dealer revenue.[6]

The level's modest concentration is really a blend of two different children: boat dealing is meaningfully consolidated (top-4 at 16.1%), while powersports is barely concentrated at all (top-4 at 4.6%), and because powersports is the larger slice it pulls the combined CR4 down to 6.5%.[4][5]

Undercount and scope caveats. Three matter. First, these are employer counts: the Economic Census and County Business Patterns cover businesses with paid employees, so the smallest owner-operated shops, broker-only sellers, and informal activity are undercounted, and private-party (peer-to-peer) sales are omitted entirely — a large share of used-boat and used-powersports units change hands with no dealer involved and never appear in these receipts.[3][4][5] Because both children are dominated by small, individually owned businesses, treat the store counts as a floor. Second, commercial databases using looser definitions count far more "dealers" than the Census does (for boats alone, roughly double).[9] Third, the code is narrower than the recreation economy around it: a lot of powersports retailing runs through farm-and-ranch and big-box channels, and total recreational-boating spending (engines, fuel, docking, insurance, maintenance) was about $55.6 billion in 2024 — far more than dealer showrooms capture.[13][14]

4. The investable universe — where value concentrates across the children

Public-market exposure is thin on both sides, and it concentrates very differently between the two children. This is the section where the size-versus-investability paradox becomes concrete.

Boat dealers (441222) — two scaled roll-ups carry the value. Direct listed exposure runs through three names:

Powersports (441227) — one leveraged pure-play, plus an entrant. Despite being the bigger industry, its direct listed exposure is narrower and riskier:

The manufacturers upstream are the larger, more liquid way to play either child's cycle — but their economics are manufacturing, not retail. Boat-side original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs) include Brunswick (NYSE: BC), Malibu Boats (Nasdaq: MBUU), and MasterCraft (Nasdaq: MCFT).[15] Powersports OEMs include Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG), BRP (Nasdaq: DOOO), and the big Japanese makers (Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki); LiveWire (NYSE: LVWR) is a small electric-motorcycle option.[16] Polaris (NYSE: PII) straddles both, building off-road vehicles, Indian motorcycles, and pontoon boats.[15][16]

Private and other owners are the industry. More than 10,000 firms are privately held — mostly single-location family businesses, with a thin layer of regional multi-store groups, employee-owned firms (Galati Yacht Sales converted to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, in 2025), private-equity-backed platforms (Comoto in powersports aftermarket), and family dealer groups expanding into the category (Zeigler, White River/Bass Pro on the boat side).[8][10] For private capital, this fragmented base of rooftops — not the handful of tickers — is the real arena.

5. How the money works

The two children run essentially the same profit model, which is why they belong together: a low-margin product sale wrapped in higher-margin services, financed on borrowed inventory. A dealer earns across four stacked profit centers, and the mix — not the sticker price — determines whether it makes money:

1. New-unit sales — the revenue headline but the thinnest margin (gross margins typically in the high-teens percent), and the first thing discounted when demand softens.[8][18]
2. Used-unit sales — structurally higher-margin and, crucially, supply the dealer controls via trade-ins; the profit stabilizer when new sales sag.[8][10]
3. Parts, service, and accessories (PSA) — the steady, high-margin annuity tied to the installed base of boats and machines already sold; for many stores this line underwrites fixed costs.[8][18]
4. Finance and insurance (F&I) — arranging loans and selling add-ons (extended warranties, gap coverage). Tiny as a revenue share but nearly pure profit; in powersports it can be 40–60% of a dealer's per-unit profit.[8][18]

At scale, the pattern is identical across both children: the smaller PSA and F&I lines together throw off roughly as much gross profit as the far larger vehicle line.[8][10]

Floor-plan financing is the cost that defines the business on both sides. Dealers rarely own inventory outright — they borrow against it on a revolving "floor-plan" line and pay interest on each unit until it sells. That makes profitability acutely sensitive to two things at once: interest rates (the carrying cost) and inventory turns (how fast units sell). When rates are high and units sit, floor-plan interest quietly eats the thin unit margin.[8][18] Because both boats and powersports vehicles are large, slow-turning, and seasonal, this is a heavier burden here than in most retail.

The metrics operators and investors watch are the same for both children: same-store sales (organic growth stripped of acquisitions), unit volume and gross-profit-per-unit (new and used separately), F&I income and penetration, PSA gross profit, service-bay utilization, inventory days-of-supply, and floor-plan cost.[8][10]

6. What drives demand

Demand across both children responds to one set of forces — these are discretionary, financed, deferrable purchases — with a few segment-specific wrinkles:

• Interest rates and credit — twice over. Rates hit the buyer (monthly payment) and the dealer (floor-plan cost) simultaneously. Elevated rates drove the 2023–2026 softness in both children and hit entry-level segments hardest.[8][17]
• Household wealth and confidence. Both track equity markets, home values, and disposable income; both fall fast when confidence drops.[8]
• The used market dominates volume. Pre-owned transactions vastly outnumber new (in boats, roughly 78% of unit sales in 2024), so used availability and pricing drive much of dealer service, brokerage, and trade-in activity on both sides.[14]
• Post-pandemic normalization. Both surged in 2020–2021 and have been working off that high base; new powerboat units fell ~9% in 2024, and powersports units fell similarly off a ~1.2M-unit 2022 peak.[14][17]
• Segment-specific drivers. Powersports has a growing utility leg — farmers and ranchers buying UTVs/side-by-sides as work vehicles, which has held up better than recreational demand — while boating skews to an aging, affluent base that sustains high-end and service revenue. Snowmobile demand hinges on snowfall; boating and off-roading skew to warm-weather and Sun Belt geography.[9][13]

Editorial judgment: near-term demand across the level is likely to stay uneven but stabilizing rather than deteriorating. On both sides, used units, service, and utility/entry-resilient segments should outperform premium discretionary new units, and no rapid return to peak-cycle volumes should be assumed.

7. Regulation

Both children are lightly regulated at the federal level relative to auto retail, with oversight that splits by product and by how the dealer sells.

Product safety and emissions (federal). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets engine-emissions standards for the gasoline and diesel engines in both boats and powersports vehicles — a burden mainly upstream on manufacturers, but with warranty and recall consequences for dealers.[9][13] Beyond that, the two children answer to different safety regulators: boats fall under the U.S. Coast Guard (construction, flotation, hull-identification, documentation of larger vessels), while off-road powersports vehicles fall under the Consumer Product Safety Commission (mandatory ATV standards and action plans) and on-highway motorcycles under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (safety standards and recalls).[9][13]

Consumer finance. Because dealers in both children arrange loans and sell F&I products, they fall under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Regulation Z (Truth in Lending — annual-percentage-rate, or APR, disclosures), the Federal Trade Commission's Safeguards Rule for customer financial data, and state credit and insurance rules.[9][13]

State franchise and licensing law is where dealers get real protection, and it is stronger in powersports. Most states run motor-vehicle/motorcycle dealer-franchise statutes that license every dealership, restrict a manufacturer's ability to terminate a franchise without good cause, and require the manufacturer to repurchase unsold new units if a franchise ends — making a dealer franchise a durable, defensible, acquirable asset.[13] Several states also license yacht brokerage as a profession.[9] Trade policy and tariffs are an increasingly cited risk for both children, since many vehicles, engines, aluminum, and components cross borders.[8]

8. Consolidation

Both children are fragmented and consolidating, but at different stages — and that difference is the most investable fact at this level.

The playbook is identical on both sides, and it is the one that reshaped auto retail a generation ago: buy independent stores, then centralize F&I, financing, procurement, used-vehicle sourcing, and back-office systems to extract scale from a business that has historically run store-by-store.[8][10] The fragmentation that makes this attractive is stark — at the combined level, the top fifty firms hold under 18% of the market.[2]

But the children are at different points on the curve. Boat dealing is further along: two well-capitalized public buyers (MarineMax, OneWater) have pushed the top-4 share to 16.1% and expanded into higher-margin adjacencies — marinas, superyacht brokerage, parts distribution, even boat manufacturing.[4][7][8] Powersports is earlier and messier: its largest consolidator (RideNow) ran an aggressive debt-funded roll-up straight into the 2024–25 downturn, forcing a restructuring and rebrand, and its top-4 share is still just 4.6% — even as an established auto retailer (Sonic) now enters by acquiring Harley-Davidson stores.[5][10][12]

Editorial judgment: consolidation should continue in both children — soft markets pressure independents to sell — but it is genuinely hard here. Manufacturer approvals, local franchise laws, technician shortages, waterfront and geographic constraints, and owner relationships all limit how fast any chain can standardize either business. Expect selective roll-up, concentrated where a buyer can measurably improve used sourcing, service utilization, and inventory control rather than just add rooftops.

9. Risks

The risk profile is common to both children, with cyclicality and rate sensitivity dominating:

• Cyclicality. Discretionary big-ticket demand can fall sharply in a downturn; both boats and powersports vehicles are among the first purchases households defer.[8][17]
• Interest-rate sensitivity — twice over. High rates hurt both the buyer (financing the unit) and the dealer (floor-plan carrying cost).[8][18]
• Inventory overhang. Large, slow-turning, expensive units mean a demand air-pocket leaves dealers holding aging, discounted stock while floor-plan interest keeps accruing; days-of-supply ran well above healthy ranges into 2025 on both sides.[8][17]
• Thin margins, high leverage. Even healthy dealers net only low-single-digit percentages; a debt-funded roll-up can move quickly from growth story to solvency question (RideNow's ~$208M of debt against a net loss is the fresh cautionary tale).[10][18]
• Manufacturer/franchise dependence. Loss of a key franchise, a weak product cycle, or a supplier's trouble dents a dealer's lineup and support.[8][13]
• Weather, climate, and geography. Hurricanes damage boat inventory and coastal facilities; snowfall governs snowmobile demand.[9][13]
• Skilled-labor scarcity. Marine and powersports technicians drive the high-margin service annuity and are hard to hire and retain.[9][13]
• Channel disruption and data limits. Peer-to-peer and online used sales, big-box and ag-dealer competition, and an unproven electrification transition all pressure the franchised model; and federal data omit the smallest operators and private-party activity, so underwriting leans on primary diligence.[13]

10. How to invest and the outlook

Public-market routes — pick your child carefully. For boat exposure, MarineMax (HZO) and OneWater (ONEW) are the two scaled direct plays — small-cap consolidators that trade as leveraged bets on the U.S. boating consumer; NextBoat (NXB) is a far smaller, more concentrated used-boat bet.[7][8][9] For powersports exposure, RideNow (RDNW) is the only listed pure-play dealer — a small, leveraged turnaround, not a diversified proxy — with Sonic Automotive (SAH) offering indirect, diluted exposure.[10][12] In both children, investors wanting the broader recreational cycle without single-dealer risk often prefer the upstream manufacturers (Brunswick, Malibu, MasterCraft, and Polaris on the water; Harley-Davidson, BRP, LiveWire, and the Japanese OEMs on land), which are larger and more liquid but carry manufacturing rather than retail economics.[15][16] Watch the same scorecard everywhere: same-store sales, gross profit per unit, F&I and PSA attachment, inventory aging, and floor-plan cost.

Private-market routes — where most of the real capital goes. The dominant route in both children is buying an existing franchised dealership, building a small multi-store group, or backing a regional roll-up — the same playbook the public consolidators run. Adjacent private opportunities capture the recurring, higher-margin end of the dollar: service-and-storage operations, marinas (NAICS 713930), and F&I/warranty providers. The core underwriting questions are common to both: How much gross profit comes from service, parts, and F&I versus new-unit volume? How old is the inventory, and who finances the floor plan? Which manufacturer franchises are durable? How dependent is the business on its owner and a few technicians? Normalize earnings for owner labor and the inventory cycle before comparing multiples. (The SBA's $40 million size standard is a screening reference for government programs, not a valuation rule.[6])

Near-term outlook (forward-looking). After two down years, both children appear to be stabilizing rather than rebounding sharply. Boating's 2026 outlook is roughly flat-to-slightly-up on units, with entry-level segments leading and dealers expecting their best results in service, then used, then new; powersports shows the same shape, with its leading dealer group posting improving profitability and used margins even as unit sales bottom.[14][17] The swing factors are identical across the level — the path of interest rates (governing both consumer affordability and dealer carrying cost), the pace of inventory normalization, and continued resilience at the utility/entry-resilient and premium ends. The structural story is intact regardless of the cycle: two fragmented, asset-heavy retail industries slowly professionalizing and consolidating toward higher-margin, recurring service and finance revenue — with the smaller boat half further down that road than the larger, still-fragmented powersports half.

---

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 NAICS Definition — 44122 Motorcycle, Boat, and Other Motor Vehicle Dealers" (child codes 441222, 441227). https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=44122&year=2022
2. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 Economic Census — Concentration of Largest Firms, NAICS 44122." Firms 10,098; receipts ~$67.47B; CR4 6.5%, CR8 8.9%, CR20 12.8%, CR50 17.6%; HHI 16.9. (Ingested federal ground truth, stats-44122.)
3. U.S. Census Bureau. "County Business Patterns: 2023 — NAICS 44122." Establishments 10,934; employees 112,469; annual payroll ~$6.458B; Q1 payroll ~$1.455B. (Ingested federal ground truth, stats-44122.)
4. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 Economic Census — Boat Dealers (441222)." Receipts $23.9B; 4,246 establishments (CBP 2023); CR4 16.1%. (Child primer 441222.)
5. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 Economic Census — Motorcycle, ATV & All Other Motor Vehicle Dealers (441227)." Receipts ~$43.5B; 6,688 establishments (CBP 2023); CR4 4.6%; HHI ~10.6. (Child primer 441227.)
6. U.S. Small Business Administration. "Table of Small Business Size Standards — NAICS 441222 and 441227 ($40 million receipts)." (2023). https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
7. MarineMax, Inc. "Annual Report on Form 10-K, FY ended Sept 30, 2025" (~$2.31B revenue; 120+ locations). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1057060/000119312525284680/hzo-20250930.htm
8. OneWater Marine Inc. "Annual Report on Form 10-K, FY ended Sept 30, 2025" (~$1.87B revenue; 95 dealerships; revenue mix, floor-plan, margins). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1772921/000177292125000085/onew-20250930.htm
9. NextBoat, Inc. (formerly Off The Hook Yachts). "Full-Year 2025 Results" and NXB rebrand. https://investor.nextboat.com/2026/03/30/off-the-hook-yachts-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2025-financial-and-operating-results/
10. RideNow Group, Inc. "2025 Form 10-K" (48 powersports locations; vehicle/PSA/F&I mix; fragmentation; franchise terms). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1596961/000159696126000015/rdnw-20251231.htm
11. PR Newswire / RideNow Group. "Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results" (revenue ~$1.08B; net loss $52.4M; LT debt $207.6M). https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ridenow-group-inc-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2025-financial-results-302708563.html
12. PR Newswire / Sonic Automotive. "Sonic Automotive Accelerates Strategic Growth Trajectory with Breakout Powersports Expansion" (~$15.2B parent revenue; Harley store acquisitions). https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sonic-automotive-accelerates-strategic-growth-trajectory-with-breakout-powersports-expansion-302747702.html
13. U.S. Census Bureau (NAICS 441227 definition) and federal regulators — EPA (engine emissions), U.S. Coast Guard (vessels), Consumer Product Safety Commission (ATVs), NHTSA (highway motorcycles), CFPB Regulation Z, FTC Safeguards Rule; representative state dealer-franchise statutes. (Child primers 441222 and 441227.)
14. National Marine Manufacturers Association. "2024 Industry Sales" ($55.6B total spending; 238,117 new / 858,798 pre-owned units) and "2026 Outlook." https://www.nmma.org/press/article/25236
15. Boat-side manufacturers (upstream): Brunswick (NYSE: BC), Malibu Boats (Nasdaq: MBUU), MasterCraft (Nasdaq: MCFT), Polaris (NYSE: PII — pontoon boats). (Child primer 441222.)
16. Powersports manufacturers (upstream): Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG), Polaris (NYSE: PII), BRP (Nasdaq: DOOO), LiveWire (NYSE: LVWR), and Honda/Yamaha/Suzuki/Kawasaki. (Child primer 441227.)
17. Motorcycle & Powersports News (Statistical Surveys). "State of the Powersports Industry" (unit sales ~1.2M peak in 2022, −9% in 2024; days-of-supply; entry vs. premium bifurcation) and RideNow Q4 2025 margin coverage. https://www.motorcyclepowersportsnews.com/state-powersports-industry-august-2025/
18. Motorcycle & Powersports News. Dealer-economics coverage (F&I ~$700/unit, ~50%+ finance penetration, floor-plan cost, net margin 2–5%). https://www.motorcyclepowersportsnews.com/your-fi-menu-was-built-for-a-camry-but-you-sell-side-by-sides/