Total electric bike sales across Europe look to be on course to overtake bicycle sales in the next few years, according to data presented to the industry at the Eurobike show in Frankfurt.
The trend is as much to do with declining bike sales than growth in e-bike sales, which while rising steadily and predictably for the past decade, have flattened in recent times in the face of a consumer spending and confidence crisis.
There has also been a ‘correction’ in the market whereby a boom in sales during Covid’s peak has come back down to earth, quite notably producing overstock trends across the globe. For you, the e-bike buying consumer, that means widespread discounts on some top tier products.
In select countries the 50% threshold has actually already been crossed, Germany being one such territory that has been on the cusp of the milestone for a few years and on course to register the stat in 2023. In fact, data covering off road segments of the market had 90% of sales registering as electric bike sales.
Germany is very much leading Europe on many fronts, though 2023 has put in a sluggish start, something attributed to poor weather for cycling, plus a significantly overstocked marketplace. Nonetheless, the threshold of half has been crossed by early indications; sales to May are expected to record 850,000 electric bike sales, versus 830,000 bicycles sold. All things considered, overall the market is likely to be 20% down like-for-like, according to Zweirad-Industrie-Verband figures.
‘In view of the ongoing war in Europe, inflation and general reluctance to buy and the very bad weather, we expected the market to slow down in the first few months,” says Burkhard Stork, Managing Director of the ZIV. “It is all the more gratifying that the expected decline in sales compared to the strong prior-year period for bicycles and especially for e-bikes throughout Germany was limited from January to May and exports increased sharply in the first quarter.’
‘Rarely has an outlook for the year as a whole been as difficult as that for the current year 2023’, says the market statistician, though in making a full year forecast for Germany it anticipates Germany will make up 2 million of Europe’s sold e-bikes.
Meanwhile in Holland, the market share of the electric bike has ten consecutive years of growth and in 2022 the market registered at 57% of bike units sold. Alongside this, speed pedelecs capable of around 30mph or 45km/h added a 9% annual growth, albeit from far smaller numbers (4,370, versus 486,000 e-bikes sold in 2022).
