The Association of Sporting Goods Manufacturers and Sports Equipment Suppliers of Austria (VSSÖ) has released the 2021 Austrian bicycle sales figures. Although the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on supply chains was still strongly felt, around 490,000 bicycles were sold to Austrian sporting goods retailers and specialist bicycle dealers last year. But: Demand exceeded the supply. Here are the key facts:
- The Austrian bicycle industry is becoming an increasingly significant economic force: in 2021, sales totaled just under €1.03 billion (+17 percent). Sales have tripled since 2015.
- The overall bicycle market had a volume of 490,394 bicycles in 2021 (-1.2 percent) – the stagnation can be explained by delivery difficulties from the Far East, with demand exceeding supply.
- The general average price in 2021 was €2,095 (+18.4 percent), that of regular (non-electric) bicycles €1,289 (+16 percent), and that of e-bikes €3,410 (+7 percent).
- About every second bicycle sold is an e-bike (total share: 45 percent, for adult bikes: 55 percent). Austria is thus once again the strongest market in the DACH region.
- In total, e-bikes generated sales of about €756 million (756,249,657) in 2021. This is about 73 percent of the total sales of bicycles in 2021.
- Over 2,200 e-bikes were sold for the first time in 2021. The sales volume thus doubled again (+136.5 percent) after the substantial increase in the previous year.
- Around 60 to 70 percent of children’s bikes are usually sold at Easter. After retailers opened in 2021, in contrast to the 2020 Easter lockdown, over 90,000 children’s and youth bikes were sold (+14.7 percent).
- The trend toward cyclecross, gravel bikes and road bikes is growing: in 2021, almost 13,000 bikes were sold in this category (+38 percent). These include e-gravel bikes as a new market with 930 sold.
“The numbers prove that bicycles can no longer be overlooked as an economic force. While we’re talking about strong sales growth, that doesn’t equate to a sales boom – because the industry could sell more if there were more bikes. This situation will remain tense in 2022,” said Michael Nendwich, spokesman for the sporting goods retail sector at the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber.
