After two record years, the turnover of the bicycle sector in 2022 decreases by 6% compared to the previous year and the sale of bicycles is reduced by 13.59%, according to the report issued by the Association of Brands and Bicycles of Spain (AMBE).
The Spanish bicycle industry closed 2022 with a downward readjustment of sales and billing, but with very positive data on employment and local production.
According to the report, “if we compare the data with 2019, the turnover of the bicycle sector in Spain in 2022 was 45.1% higher than the reference year. However, 2022 did not match the sales and billing data of 2021 in various categories (global bicycles, components and accessories), producing a 6% decrease in turnover compared to 2021 and a 13.59% drop in the number of bicycles sold.
According to the study, employment in the sector registered its best year since there are data: the Spanish bicycle industry employs 24,456 people directly (5.32% more than the previous year).
Despite being a year of adjustments, employment and business creation reached record figures. In 2022, there were 3,111 bicycle sales, repair and rental points operating in Spain (2.74% more than the previous year) and 401 companies (10.77%)
The national production of bicycles increased in 2022 by 2.8% in value compared to the previous year to reach 255.8 million euros (more than double the data registered in 2019) and are the best bicycle production data by volume billing of the historical series, according to statistics from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.
The export of bicycles also increased by 76.5% compared to the previous year and triples the data of 2019.
In Spain there are 189 national manufacturers of bicycles, components and accessories registered (5% more than the previous year) and 8 out of 10 electric bicycles originated from European production.
In the words of Javier López, president of AMBE, “2022 has not been an easy year for the bicycle industry, but the increase in employment, the creation of companies and the positive behavior of the sale of electric and urban bicycles reflects what that the sector can offer Spanish society: cleaner mobility, jobs and business opportunitiesâ€
After two years of record sales and billing, 2022 was a year of readjustment, weighed down mainly by the drop in demand. Compared with the data from the previous year, in 2022 more than 1.35 million bicycles were sold in Spain (13.59% less than in 2021) and the sector’s turnover fell by 6% to 2,714 million euros.
“Despite not having state aid for the purchase and repair of bicycles, as our neighboring countries have, or tax incentives for cycling to work or acquiring fleets of bicycles, the year 2022 has performed better than expected , although worse than neighboring countries such as France or Germany, which enjoy institutional support so that more people have access to a bicycle as a form of daily mobilityâ€, indicated Jesús Freire, Secretary General of AMBE.
However, if the data is compared with the year 2019 (before the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine), the sale of bicycles registered an increase of 7.6% and the turnover of the sector an increase of 45.1%.
In sell-in sales data, the turnover in component sales increased by 2.51% compared to the previous year, but there was a decrease in sales value in several categories of accessories that had registered exceptional behavior during the years 2020 and 2021: helmets (-16.53%), textiles (-15.18%) and shoes (-6.82%).
Regarding the prices of bicycles, in 2022 there was an increase in the average price (RRP) of 13.93%, closely linked to the increase in the costs of raw materials, transport, but above all to a greater weight of the sale of electric bicycles (with a higher average price) within the product sales mix.
The average price of the bicycle sold in Spain exceeded 1,000 euros for the first time (1,121 euros), highlighting the average price of the electric bicycle (2,940 euros) which rose 2.8% and the increase in the average price of gravel bikes (42.4%) which stands at 1,589 euros. On the other side of the coin, the average price of the urban bicycle (305 euros) fell by 0.4%.
The bicycle categories that registered the best sales behavior in 2022 were urban bicycles, which increased their sales by 22.5%, and electric bicycles, which reached 236,183 units sold and an increase in sales of 5.7%. compared to the previous year.
For the third consecutive year, electric bicycles consolidate as the leading category in billing (45.66% of the share in bicycle sales) despite representing 17.4% of unit sales, followed by mountain bikes, which was traditionally the leading segment in billing and which registers a 34.5% market share in units sold compared to 28.45% in sales volume.
The greatest decreases in unit sales compared to the previous year were registered in gravel bikes (-34.35%) and mountain bikes (-23%).
