European Bike Season Kicks Off with Record Highs

LONDON, UK - Following our last weeks news on bike sales, more reports from various countries are coming in which indicate that the European bike season kicked off in April on a record high. Today the British Association of Cycle Traders (ACT) published

the results of their survey among 273 independent cycle retailers and workshops throughout the UK. According to this survey, the overall sales growth in April was 19.4%, another strong month following the 22.6% growth reported in March.

“Despite the media’s relentless diet of doom and gloom, there is buoyancy in some markets and not just the food sector”, says the ACT in their report. “The cumulative underlying sales increase in the specialist sector year to date now stands at a very healthy 9.9%.” In the UK weather was again a key driver in April, although not quite as good as March neither was the sales uplift.

From Italy it is reported that the government incentive is having a huge positive impact on bike sales. The Italian Ministry for the Environment started an incentive scheme which contributes to a maximum of 30% of the retail price of a bicycle or e-Bike. The maximum amount is € 700 which is for a bike that retails for € 2,330. This is on average the retail price of a high-end electric bicycle.

Italians don’t want to miss out on this scheme as it is said that it created a run on bike shops! Also in that southern European country bike sales started on a high this year. The same goes for countries further up North where Europe’s biggest group of bike makers is operating. As reported earlier by this trade publication Accell Group saw after a long winter, already mid-March a strong start in bicycle sales. The same was reported by companies belonging to the number two bike maker in Europe; Cycleurope.