EU's e-bike imports continue to surge
Posted on in Business News , Cycles News
2016 was a great year for e-bikes, with figures showing that the import of (regular 250W - 25kmph) e-bikes into the EU's 28 member states from countries outside Europe increased by over 60% compared to the 2015 figures.
The 2016 e-bike import statistics are, like the years before, showing a big growth underlining the growing popularity of this bike category. From January 1st to December 31st 2016 a total of 1,188,000 electric bicycles were imported into the European Union from countries outside the EU. E-bikes imported from one EU country to the other are excluded from this report.
Compared to the 2015 total import figure of 726,000 units, the 2016 import is up by a substantial 63.6%. The average value per imported unit dropped by 7.9% from € 396 in 2015 to € 365 in 2016.
Some 80% of all imported e-bikes from outside Europe came from China, accounting for a huge 78% market share. The Chinese imports showed the biggest growth of the top 5 supplying e-bike countries to Europe as they rose by 70%, counting for a growth of 385,000 units, to a total of over 930,000.
E-bike imports from Taiwan were up from 43,000 to nearly 80,000 units; an increase of 84%. And with that total Taiwan ranks as Europe's 3rd biggest supplying country. Claiming the number 2 position in 2016 was Vietnam where imports increased by 23% to 91,500 units.
However, the surge of e-bike imports into the EU had a negative impact on regular bike imports which hit an all-time low of just 6.7 million bicycles.
This report comes a year after a 3.2% decline was recorded, with a total import of 7.5 million bicycles in 2015. In 2014 the total import of regular bicycles stood at 7.7 million units, meaning that in 2 years the import of regular bikes into the EU has dropped by one million units.
