Winnebago profits, but is still cautious
Winnebago posted its first quarterly profits in more than a year. What's that mean for the iconic maker of recreational vehicles? Alisa Roth reports.
A Winnebago logo decorates the side of a Sightseer motor home offered for sale at the Camp-Land RV dealership in Burns Harbor, Ind. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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Kai Ryssdal: RV's, that is recreational vehicles, can be a pretty good indicator of a coming recession. They are expensive. They are decidedly not a necessity. And, in fact, the RV business was beat up pretty good during the past couple of years. Today, though, some better news. Winnebago posted its first quarterly profits in more than a year, as Marketplace's Alisa Roth reports.
ALISA ROTH: Winnebago is selling more RVs. But not to consumers.
Dave Whiston follows Winnebago at Morningstar. He says most of the buyers are dealers.
DAVE WHISTON: So the challenge now is, now that the dealers have ordered the product, will consumers walk into a dealer showroom and buy?
Whiston says a lot of people put off buying the vehicles when the economy was bad. Now dealers are betting demand will pick up as the economy keeps getting better.
WHISTON: You're seeing more people willing to go ahead and take the plunge. Frankly if you're retired, you can't wait forever to buy that RV.
And increasingly "that RV" means a Winnebago.
Kathryn Thompson follows the company for Thompson Research. It's an equity research firm. She says in a way, the recession actually helped Winnebago.
KATHRYN THOMPSON: You've had some major competitors either go out of business, file for bankruptcy...
That means a lot less competition for Winnebago. The company's hired back some workers and upped production to meet the new demand.
But it's still not expecting a smooth ride. The CEO said "the economic outlook remains uncertain."
I'm Alisa Roth for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Winters, CA, 03/18/2010
You're kidding, right? A piece about Winnebago sales rising after a piece about carbon "fees".
We should celebrate the collapse of the RV market in the streets and hope it never comes back. RVs are probably one of the most obvious examples of Americans' overuse of carbon-producing fuels just because they are cheap. Let's put a direct tax on fuel for RVs to make driving a car and staying in a hotel a more affordable option than buying a vehicle big enough to transport 20 people just for you and your spouse. We can retrain the workers who build them to work in a more useful industry that will still be around when fossil fuels disappear.
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