Harley-Davidson Inc. and Polaris Industries Inc. both posted profits that beat expectations, but high unemployment cast a pall over the former’s results.

Harley-Davidson’s beat stemmed from a higher operating profit at the company’s finance arm. Falling credit losses and cheaper borrowing costs at the unit helped offset continued softness in worldwide motorcycle sales.

Polaris’ beat resulted from a nearly 50 percent jump in sales of the company’s all-terrain vehicles, whose side-by-side seating plan has proved popular with buyers, including many farmers, who use the vehicle as a work vehicle.

Polaris also raised its full-year profit outlook, and its shares rose 2 percent. Harley-Davidson fell 3.5 percent.

Harley-Davidson reported a third-quarter net profit of $88.8 million, or 38 cents a share, up from $26.5 million, or 11 cents a share, a year earlier.

Sales fell about 2 percent to $1.09 billion.

Stripping out costs from Italian sports bike maker MV Agusta, which Harley-Davidson sold in August, earnings were 40 cents a share. Analysts on average were expecting 35 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The in-house financial services unit reported an operating profit of $50.9 million, compared with a year-earlier loss of $31.5 million that had prompted speculation that Harley might get out of the lending business.

The finance unit’s turnaround helped offset continued weakness in the company’s motorcycles and related products, where operating income fell 22 percent to $101.5 million.

Worldwide sales of the company’s bikes fell 7.7 percent, pulled down by a 9.4 percent decline in the United States — the company’s biggest market.