The record summer with a long period of fine weather that lasted until late autumn literally caused sales of motorized bicycles to explode in 2018, reports the Swiss Bicycle and E-Bike Association SFVE. This is based on figures from the industry association velosuisse, which were collected from domestic importers, wholesalers and specialist stores. According to this survey, a total of 345,313 bicycles and e-bikes were sold. This represents an increase of 2.1 percent compared to 2017, which was also a good year in meteorological terms.

The growth in e-bikes continued to gain momentum. From 2015 to 2016, an increase in sales of 14.1 percent was already achieved in terms of unit sales. In 2017, growth amounted to 16.3 percent. In 2018, the e-bike market even grew by a whopping 26.9%. For the first time, significantly more than 100,000 e-bikes were sold in Switzerland within one year. Or to put it more clearly: For every two conventional bikes, there was one with an electric drive in 2018.

The motorized mountain bike is selling like crazy

E-mountain bikes remain the frontrunners in terms of sales growth, according to Martin Platter from the SFVE specialist office. After two years of growth by more than a third, sales figures rose by half to 43,220 units in the previous year. But there was also more demand for road e-bikes. This time, sales rose by 15.4 percent to 68,441 units. As e-mountainbikes are preferably purchased as light motor bikes (without registration, assistance only up to 25 km/h), this also has an overall effect on the status of fast e-bikes (with moped number, up to 45 km/h). Their market share fell from 19 to 14 percent within a year. In contrast, the sale of cargo bikes has more than quadrupled to 1649 units with low unit numbers.

The conventional bike is losing ground

However, the good e-bike sales figures had an impact on sales of conventional, purely "muscle bikes". Both the sports segment (without lights, mudguards and pannier rack) and the everyday bike segment recorded significant declines of 3.4 percent and 12.6 percent respectively. But not across the board: racing bikes (+15.7%) and mountain bikes with 29-inch wheels (+3%) were more popular than in 2017. In the high-volume category of mountain bikes with 27.5-inch wheels, however, sales fell by 15.5% or 8,230 units at a high volume level. E-mountainbikes (up to 25 km/h), on the other hand, were the category with the biggest increase, rising by 11,157 to 32,669 units, which corresponds to an increase of 51.9%. Marked declines were also recorded for city bikes (-12,485), although e-bike sales almost compensated for this with an increase of 9,158 units (including cargo). Platter comments on this movement: "Retailers should be pleased with these shifts. At an average of CHF 3,500, an e-bike costs almost three times more than a conventional bike. This also increases the added value."

velosuisse.ch