Bicycle industry continues to struggle with headwinds

Published: 2024-10-21 08:53:19 ET BIKE.DE

GÖTTINGEN/FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - The bicycle industry is struggling in the face of persistent headwinds, while customers can still hope for high discounts for some time to come. According to a study by consulting firm Roland Berger, the sales figures for new bikes in Europe will remain well below the best figures from the coronavirus era for the next two years.

Manufacturers are sitting on large quantities of fully assembled bikes and expensively purchased components, while retailers are hardly reordering because they have to reduce their own stocks first. According to the market study, for which 40 industry insiders, mainly from German-speaking countries, were qualitatively surveyed, a recovery will not set in until the 2026 season at the earliest.

Price war continues - further discounts expected

In stores, bikes will therefore often only be available for sale with high discounts in the coming year. The price war will continue for at least another 18 months, says study author Michael Heller. In addition to the struggle for sufficient liquidity, Uwe Wohl from the VSF dealer association is also observing increasing predatory competition: large manufacturers are already offering new goods from the 2025 season at lower prices than in the previous year. The stocks of the remaining suppliers are thus automatically losing value.

Interested parties can therefore continue to expect low prices for both e-bikes and conventional bikes - even if the ADFC warns against ill-considered quick purchases that do not suit one's own needs or body size. Wohl points out that high discounts are only good for consumers as long as bicycle retailers can survive with their range of services.

Margins remain low

Because retailers also ordered much less than expected at the leading trade fair "Eurobike" in Frankfurt, the majority of study participants expect further declines in sales. According to one major e-bike manufacturer, it is planning a 15 percent drop in volume for 2025. "The current margins for me as a retailer are so low due to the current discount campaigns that it is much riskier to order goods from my bicycle brands than to forego the additional turnover," the managing director of a retail chain is also quoted as saying.

Overall, sales remain well below the level of the record year 2021, when 22.1 million bikes were sold across Europe during the coronavirus pandemic and a turnover of 21.2 billion euros was achieved. Although the average price per bike is rising as a result of the e-bike boom, the authors expect revenues to remain below the record at around 20 billion euros in 2026. However, this would only require 15.9 million bikes to be sold. According to the forecast, there will be 15.3 million bikes with a turnover of 17.5 billion euros in the current year.

E-bikes could become cheaper on average

However, the study, in which the Gottinger Pressedienst Fahrrad was also involved, believes that the overarching trend towards CO2-free mobility in Europe's cities remains intact. The bicycle is an important part of the transport revolution. Sales growth is being achieved through the growing share of e-bikes, which already account for more than half of all sales in the German market. Other European markets only have e-bike quotas of 30 percent in some cases, so there is additional sales potential there.

The average prices for e-bikes are likely to settle at a slightly lower level with simpler technology. In Germany, the widespread leasing of company bikes has so far favored particularly high-quality and expensive bikes - a sales requirement that does not exist in many other countries.

Stronger brands and lower value creation

The Roland Berger study advises manufacturers to introduce fewer new models and strengthen their brands. They would also have to strive for a greater share of value creation by developing their own components and accessories, which have so far been bought in on a large scale and only fitted to frames that have also been bought in.

It is also expected that manufacturers will increasingly try to market their bikes directly to consumers via the Internet. However, established dealers would be involved in the strategy in order to avoid conflicts. The exception here are companies that have already built up their own strong online sales without a dealer network in recent years.

Trend towards more bicycle traffic intact

Despite all the problems, the players see the bicycle market as fundamentally intact. The bicycle is an important instrument for solving traffic problems, says co-author Gunnar Fehlau, for example. However, ADFC Federal Managing Director Caroline Lodemann calls for a faster expansion of the corresponding infrastructure. Sufficient money, planning security and courage are needed on the way to becoming an attractive cycling country./ceb/DP/mis

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