The hot and rain-free super summer of 2018 made e-bike sales skyrocket across Europe. Here’s an overview of what happened in most markets. Starting in the North shows that the markets of Sweden, Denmark and Finland are growing to maturity. Sweden even ranks now among the largest e-bike markets of Europe.
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Next to the weather, the popularity of electric bicycles in Sweden got an extra boost by the government which is offering a subsidy of up to one thousand euro on the purchase of an e-bike. It resulted in a total sales of 103,000 e-bikes in the September 2017 to August 2018 period in Sweden; up 53% on the same period one year earlier.
In Denmark e-bikes are growing into a significant market force. That’s evidenced by a quadrupled import in the past five years and a market share that is nearing ten percent with total sales of some 40,000 units.
In Finland e-bike sales doubled again last year as in 2017. However, the factual numbers are still low and estimated as somewhat over the 5,000 units mark. E-bikes are boosting the German bicycle industry as the sales volume hiked by a staggering 36 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. No less than 980,000 units were sold last year. Today every one out of four bicycles sold in Germany is an electric one. Last year in the Netherlands an unprecedented market expansion took place thanks to e-bikes. Sales increased by 38 percent to a total of 409.400 units. The e-bike is now the biggest category in the Netherlands and is becoming the new standard. In France 2018 e-bike sales increased by 21 percent to an all-time high of 338,000 units. The e-bike category now represents 535 million euro in sales, which accounts for more than 40 percent of French total bicycle market value.
Belgium e-bike sales is supported by tax incentives
The people in Belgium are also embracing e-bikes as 2018 e-bikes sales upped over 14 percent to 251,500 units. It makes electric bicycles by far the biggest category of the Belgian market with a market share that stands at close to 50 percent. Sales is supported by tax incentives of the national government. Turning to Switzerland; here e-bike sales broke a new record in 2018. With a total of 111,000 units, almost every third bicycle sold in Switzerland was electrified. Next to Switzerland also in Austria 2018 e-bike sales broke records. Recording an over ten percent growth total sales stood at some 150,000 units. With that e-bikes are now holding a 33 percent share of the Austrian bicycle market.
Italy reports 290 percent jump in e-bike production
In line with the 2018 market statistics in other EU countries, also the Confindustria ANCMA, Italy’s National Association of Cycle, Motorcycle and Accessories Industry reported a double digit sales hike in e-bikes. Also the production of e-bikes increased substantially. Sales increased by 16.8 percent to 173,000 units while Italy’s e-bike production jumped by 290 percent to 102,000 units.
Finally Spain; the last country of which Bike Europe is able to provide some insight on the e-bike market volume. It took some more time as in other European countries, but electric bikes are now also making their mark on the bicycle market in Spain. In fact, e-bikes are now also turning Spain’s bike market around, as the country’s industry association AMBE noted. According to AMBE’s sell-out monitor 111,297 e-bikes were sold in Spain last year. This represents a staggering 55 percent increase compared to the total of 2017. It means that e-bikes now take up close to 11 percent of the total bike market of Spain. That’s unit-wise. Value-wise e-bikes account for a much bigger stake as the average value per unit sold stood at 2,165 euro.
