“Despite all the challenges, 2021 was a great success for the German bicycle industry,” said ZIV managing director Burkhard Stork at the start of his presentation on the 2021 German market statistics. “From the beginning, it was foreseeable that it would not be an easy year: pandemic-related factory closures, massively disrupted supply chains and delivery difficulties caused serious problems that jeopardised the success of the industry.”
Effect of reshoring
Last September, ZIV anticipated on a total e-bike market volume of 1.9 million units, which would correspond to a slight decrease of around -2.6%. This slight decline was mainly attributed to supply chain constraints.
“Nevertheless, the manufacturers were able to increase their production volumes by 10% last year,” Burkhard Stork confirms. “This success could also be attributed in part to the result of reshoring effects that can already be observed today. The industry could have achieved an even better result when urgently needed parts would have been available in time.”
More production, higher inventory
In 2021 a total of 1.43 million e-bike (+ 8%) and 940,000 bicycles (+ 13.2%) were produced by the German industry. The total value of these 2.37 units was €6.56 billion. In addition, 4.14 million bicycles and e-bike were imported to Germany. This represents an increase of 11% compared to 2020. Exports remained almost unchanged at 1.56 million units.