EU e-bike and bicycle import values surge

A major hike in the average import price of e-bikes into the European Union, in combination with a double digit increase in the number of e-bikes shipped to Europe gave a remarkable push to the market value in 2022. Also, the average import price of mechanical bicycles to the EU soared last year.

The latest import statistics clearly show that overseas production is still very relevant to cater for the demand for e-bikes. The massive investments in e-bike assembly in Europe, particularly in countries like Portugal, Bulgaria and Romania were thought to reduce the dependence on overseas production. This is certainly not (yet) the case.

Import value of e-bikes up one third

All major supplying countries, except for Turkey, saw a major increase in volumes shipped to Europe. The 15% less shipped e-bikes by Turkey can be regarded as a correction to 2021 when the total shipments from this country hiked by 71%. The top-5 supplying countries Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Turkey and Switzerland are holding a market share of 93% of all e-bikes shipped to Europe.

The total market value of all e-bike exporting countries combined jumped by no less than 33.8% to €1.137 billion. The major difference between the EU import volume and value is the higher average price of €959 in 2022, an increase of 16.5% from €823 in 2021. Compared with 2020, the average price in 2021 was down 3.1% at € 823.

Market share Taiwan

With Taiwan as the biggest supplier for the European e-bike market holding a market share of 47%, also Vietnam, China and Switzerland, report double digit increases. In units the total number of e-bikes shipped to Europe increased by 14.8% from 1,032,638 units in 2021 to 1,185,695 in 2022.

The export volume of e-bikes from Taiwan to Europe as reported by the Taiwan BOFT Information Center are not in line with the statistics published by the European Union. According to the BOFT, Taiwan shipped 525,852 e-bikes to Europe in 2022, 3.98% less than in 2021. According to the official European statistics 30,000 more e-bikes were exported to Europe, an increase of almost 16% compared with 2021.

Bicycle import value surges by 30%

In a year the market was troubled by supply chain shortages, the bicycle import value saw a remarkable increase seldomly seen before. In 2022 the price per unit was pushed up even more and recorded a growth of 38.2%. These figures mark a turn-around of the market value which has seen a slow but steady decline since e-bike sales gained momentum.

The sharp rise in the average retail price is reflected in retail prices. As reported earlier, the European import value of e-bikes hiked by double digits and is now exceeding value of bicycles shipments to Europe.

Cambodia takes bigger piece of the pie

Contrary of the market value increase, the total bicycle volume of the Asian exporting countries last year was less than in 2021. The total shipments of regular bicycles decreased from 5.4 million units in 2021 by 6.37% to just over 5 million in last year. For long the leading supplier, Cambodia, stepped up their shipments by 18.44% to 1.2 million units. The country is now supplying almost a quarter of all EU bicycle imports. Cambodia’s market share increased from 18.9% in 2021 to 23.8% in 2022.

Most of the top-10 bicycle exporting countries to the European Union however recorded less shipments in 2022 compared with 2021. The bicycle production from other Asian countries like China (-13%), Taiwan (-12%), Philippines (-74%), Sri Lanka (-14%) and India (-30%) is shifting towards others like Bangladesh (+7%), Tunisia (32%) and Thailand (+68%).