Yamaha Motor's marine business made ¥69.0 billion in operating profit in the first nine months of 2026, up 40.2%, while it sold fewer outboards in North America. The company published the figures on 6 November, covering January to September.
What Yamaha reported
Marine revenue rose 7.8% to ¥430.2 billion. The segment covers outboard motors, personal watercraft, boats, and fishing and utility boats. It brought in about a fifth of Yamaha Motor's revenue and close to 30% of its operating profit.
Yamaha said outboard demand fell in the US, its main market, and grew in Asia and Latin America. Its results presentation puts US outboard demand at 96% of last year's level. Yamaha's own outboard shipments to North America slipped from 70,000 to 69,000 units. Europe rose from 24,000 to 26,000 and the rest of the world from 109,000 to 116,000, for 210,000 in all. Demand for personal watercraft also fell in the US, and Yamaha sold fewer of them.
Why profit rose when US sales fell
Prices went up. Yamaha said revenue grew on those sales trends together with "the implementation of price revisions". It said operating profit increased "despite the impact of higher costs resulting from U.S. tariffs and the situation in the Middle East, supported by price pass-through, reductions in SG&A expenses, and favorable foreign exchange effects."
The weak yen did a lot of the work. Powerboat News, which reported the results on 8 November, converted both years at Yamaha's own average exchange rates and got $2.71 billion of marine revenue this year against $2.70 billion last year. In dollars, the business barely grew.
Yamaha kept its full-year forecast for the group unchanged, at ¥260 billion of operating profit. It said that allows for a stronger yen toward the end of the year and for US tariffs.
What it means if you own one
Yamaha's own numbers show the gain came from higher prices, not more engines sold in the US. Yamaha has raised its prices, which puts more weight on used boats that already have Yamaha power. The engine and the hull have separate records. An outboard carries its own serial number, not a HIN, so check the engine and the boat separately before you buy. Our outboard recall check covers the engine side.
The HIN codes
The Coast Guard's manufacturer register lists YAM for Yamaha Motor Corporation USA in Cypress, California. That is the code on Yamaha's own jet boats and WaveRunners. The code STE, found on Skeeter bass boats, is registered to Yamaha Marine USA at One Skeeter Road in Kilgore, Texas. The Yamaha HIN decoder explains how to read the rest of the number.
Recalls still listed as open
The Coast Guard recall database lists 32 campaigns under the Yamaha name. Several from the last five years are still marked open. The largest, 22MF0044, covers 32,498 units from model year 2021 and was opened in February 2022. 21MF0187 covers 7,526 units from model year 2021, with the models listed as GP1800B and VX1050. 24MF0388, opened in July 2024, covers 2,736 units from model year 2023. Skeeter's 21MF0279, for 772 boats from model year 2021, is also open.
A campaign on record means some boats of that model and year were recalled, not that a particular hull was. Before you buy, decode the HIN with the free HIN decoder to confirm the builder and model year, then look up every Yamaha recall and ask the seller for proof that any open campaign was done. Yamaha is not the only builder reporting a soft US market this month: Malibu Boats shares fell after a slow summer for wake boats.
Check the boat, not just the listing
Type the 12-character hull number from the transom. The decoder reads the builder, build month and model year, and the recall lookup lists any US Coast Guard recall campaign on record for that manufacturer. Free, no account.
