e-bike growth in Switzerland

With the release of recent figures in Switzerland, we now know the state of the bicycle market and it looks good for e-bikes. Whilst on the whole, the bicycle market’s sales reduced by 1% to just over 320,000 units per year, the sales of e-bikes increased by a whopping 15% in 2015 making it the biggest growing segment in the market.

Although e-bikes now account for 20% of all bicycle sales, city bikes haven't really fluctuated at all because it is the mountain bike that has really suffered over the past few months. Just a decade ago, e-bike sales were at 3,000 units which was just 1% of the market but ten years later and this has grown twenty times over to over 66,000 units. In terms of the wider market and where this places Switzerland, Germany and the Netherland’s e-bike market share also rose leaving Switzerland in the middle. The three now stand as follows; Netherlands 28%, Switzerland 20%, Germany 12.5%.

Speed-pedelecs remain as Switzerland’s biggest seller with over a quarter of all sales; even more impressive is the fact that half of all e-MTBs were of this variety - 9,500 of 19,500. It was only recently that these two figures were separated and it is clear to see how dominant speed-pedelecs are nowadays. The vehicles do have to be registered as a moped in Switzerland and the bosses of the big companies are still unsure as to why their sales have rocketed in recent years; many believed that they would not sell well due to them being restricted from forests and hiking trails. Standard mountain bikes fell in popularity despite an increase in the mountain bike figures as a whole.

As mentioned previously, city bikes were relatively stable in 2015 and are still the second most popular choice after e-bikes; 70,000 units were sold last year. It is thought that nostalgia has a part to play in the stability of the market as well as the fact that their prices are reducing and they are becoming more efficient in terms of weight. Furthermore, road race bikes which have been struggling of late managed to increase performance in 2015 and enjoyed a small rise.

IBDs are still dominating the market in terms of where most of the sales are being made and it is believed that two in every three bicycles are sold this way. On the other hand, specialty stores and retail chains saw their market share fall. Despite the current success of the IBDs, experts are predicting a change in the future so they can’t take anything for granted just yet.

Canyon, Rose, and other online shops performed better in 2015 but their figures were not included in the main report; nor were private imports. If these were taken into account, the outlook for retailers could be even worse. Despite these small inconsistencies, the release of the information is widely trusted as the data is collected from the main distributors.

One of the main worries of 2015 was seen right at the beginning of the year when the minimum exchange rate was set by the Swiss National Bank but this actually had less of an impact than first feared. The dreaded ‘2011 effect’ was avoided thanks to the quick response by the retailers, importers and manufacturers.

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