Jan-Willem van Schaik

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Taiwan's bicycle industry had hoped for better times on the eve of the opening its annual leading event, the Taipei International Cycle Show. The support for the show with 950 exhibitors is big, but can't mask the difficulties faced by the industry.

TAICHUNG, Taiwan - Operating a production facility in Taiwan and Vietnam, plus service centers in Italy and the United States, Glory Wheel (GW) has established a firm position in the market as component manufacturer. Founder and CEO Charles Lee has planned an IPO in 2025 depending on the market conditions.

HAARLEM, the Netherlands - In times of excess stock or supply shortages, Blomson international has been in the market for many years to either provide the necessary floating capital or missing components. An online marketplace is now available for the industry to source those missing components to finish bicycle assembly.

TAICHUNG, Taiwan - The extent to which companies in the Taiwanese bicycle industry have adopted sustainable practices into their manufacturing varies greatly. Jeff Chen, general manager of Joy Group, told Bike Europe that this is one of the reasons why his company decided to take on the challenge of the Bicycle Alliance for Sustainability (BAS): "This project is to the benefit of the whole industry."

TAICHUNG, Taiwan - In 2022 and 2023, the Marwi Group embarked on a journey towards environmental sustainability. "We are ambitious," says Marwi Group CEO Coco Pai to Bike Europe during a recent visit. In the past year, the component manufacturer made big steps forward in digitisation and smart manufacturing. ESG is the next challenge.

TAICHUNG, Taiwan - In 2013 Hyena Inc. started the e bike system development from the core motor controlling and driving technology. "Subsequently we extended our expertise to the whole system and software design," explains Hyena founder and CEO Charlie Chuang.

ZEIST, the Netherlands - "The market is returning back to a normal situation of pre-2020." This is a much heard comment on the current disruption of the market. The European e-bike import statistics show the market is currently in a free fall downwards, indicating that its worse than "going back to normal."

TAIPEI, Taiwan - "Hard times are also a good time to prepare exciting future products and tech from across the industry," Robert Wu, Chairman of the Taiwan Bicycle Association (TBA) told Bike Europe last September. With this message of hope the island nation is hoping for better times as a premium supplier for the bicycle industry. The Taipei International Cycle Show is always a good moment to update the market situation, but this year 'Taipei' prepares the business to become a 'better' industry and put its focus on sustainability and other ESG topics.

AMERSFOORT, the Netherlands - Babboe has announced the inevitable recall of its cargo bikes after receipt of numerous reports of frame breakage as reported last week. For now, it regards the City, City E, Mini and Mini E models only. Whether all other Babboe cargobikes will follow in this recall is not clear yet. "We are currently consulting with the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) on taking further steps."

AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands - The Dutch market saw a slight decrease of 6% from 833,366 units in 2022 to 804,101 units last year. Thanks to a higher average retail price the revenue was down only 3.7% from 2022 to €1.4 billion in 2023. According to Huub Lamers, chairman of the section bicycles at the industry organization RAI and COO at Pon.Bike, "in times of supply chain constraints, we lack the availability of high quality data. The information we share today is based on sell out data, but we only have estimates on the number of bicycles and e-bikes in the pipeline."