The Swiss bicycle supplier association Velosuisse collects figures every year and has now published them: In 2023, 395,036 bicycles and e-bikes changed hands in the bicycle trade in Switzerland. This is around 100,000 fewer vehicles than in the coronavirus years 2020 to 2022, but still more than in 2019. Not all areas are affected by the decline: The 45cc e-bikes, also known as S-pedelecs, increased again by 16.6 percent to 26,559 vehicles. 

However, demand is otherwise thoroughly stagnating: deliveries of slow e-bikes are down by a quarter, while deliveries of bicycles are down by 16 percent. The number of bicycles in Switzerland is now around five million, while the number of e-bikes has grown to 1.25 million.

Martin Platter from the Swiss Bicycle and E-Bike Federation (SFVE) explains how this decline came about: "In 2022, consumer sentiment was already cooling significantly due to the war and inflation, when the record number of 218,730 e-bikes were delivered to the market far too late in some cases. A beautiful spring, which could have eased the situation, did not materialize in 2023. And the summer was very hot". Platter concludes that it is therefore only logical that fewer bikes and e-bikes were sold in 2023.

Important for many businesses: service and repairs

Since record numbers of vehicles were sold in the coronavirus boom years of 2000 to 2022, they are now rolling back into specialist dealerships for service and repairs. Daniel Schärer, Managing Director of 2Rad Schweiz, announces that sales of repairs in 2023 were slightly higher than in the previous year. However, Schärer qualifies that very different results were achieved depending on the company and brand. Schärer also notes that 2023 sales were higher than in the pre-corona phase.

The detailed statistics on new bicycle sales in 2023 are available here.

velosuisse.ch