Bicycle production in Central Eastern Europe

The production of bicycles in the European Union has increased by eleven percent, according to data from the statistics portal Eurostat. A total of 13.5 million non-motorized bicycles were manufactured in the EU in 2021, up from 12.1 million in 2020. This corresponds to an increase of 11.0 percent.

Exports and imports of bicycles also increased sharply over the same period. Exports rose by 15.8 percent to 5.6 million units, while imports climbed by 16.9 percent to 4.9 million units.

Bicycle production in the EU increases by eleven percent. The leading bike manufacturing country of non-motorized bicycles were manufactured in Portugal with 2.9 million units - around 11.9 percent more than in the previous year. Romania (2.5 million), Italy (1.9 million), Germany (1.4 million) and Poland (1.2 million) follow as the largest producing countries.

In Italy, bicycle production fell by 14 percent, in Germany and Poland it rose by almost 10.0 percent. Spain is particularly striking: Production there rose from around 186,000 units in 2020 to a good 550,000 last year. In Hungary too, almost 400,000 units were manufactured, more than twice as many bicycles as in 2020 (around 140,000).

The main buyers are the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The UK is the top buyer of non-motorized bicycles with 30% (by value) of exports, followed by Switzerland with 21%. Switzerland (38 percent) and the United Kingdom (27 percent) were also the most important countries for EU exports of e-bikes, followed by Norway (13 percent) and the United States with 8.0 percent).

Cambodia was the largest exporter of bikes into the EU, with 27 percent of total bicycle imports Taiwan (26 percent), China (10.0 percent), Bangladesh (8.0 percent) and Turkey (5.0 percent) follow.

Taiwan was the largest manufacturer and exporter of e-bikes into the EU with 57 percent of the market share followed by Switzerland (13 percent), Vietnam (11.0 percent), China (7.0 percent) and Turkey (6.0 percent). So combining ebikes and traditional bikes Taiwan accounted for 41.5 percent of all imports of complete bikes into the European Union.