MILANO – After the race driven by state incentives, by the desire to escape post-lockdown, by the spread of a new way of moving in the city and outdoors, here is the big slowdown. A “minus” sign of important proportions: the bicycle sector in Italy receives it, which closes 2023 with a decline of 23% on the previous year.
“Thus, all the effects and implications of the long wave of state incentives, the global supply problems of recent years and the current excess of supply are fulfilled, with a total of bicycles sold during the year which slightly exceeds the 1.3 million pieces”, explains the two-wheeler Confindustria Ancma which presented the data in Milan.
The concept that the Association underlines is that it is more of an industrial adjustment, a problem of supply adjustment, rather than a demand crisis. Which remains well above pre-pandemic crisis levels.
Muscle bikes barely hold the 1 million sales mark: 1,090,000 pieces sold to be precise, -24%, while e-bikes stop their progression at 273,000 units, 19% less than the previous year . “A more appropriate and indicative comparison with 2019 (+40%) confirms, however, the protagonism of pedal-assisted bicycles – which today represent 25% of sales – and takes into account their growth prospects, in addition to the industrial ones”.
If you look at the “industrial” indicators of the sector, they follow the market trend: Italian production falls below 2 million pieces for the first time in 50 years, 1,685,000 muscle bicycles (-29%) and 290,000 e-bikes (-23%). the trade balance of the sector is positive, i.e. the account that records the difference between exports and imports, which marks a value of +21 million euros.
The turnover in 2023 does not go beyond 2.6 billion euros (it was 3.2 billion in 2022), but “it instead marks a solid +24% again in comparison with 2019. The adequate comparison with the period pre-Covid also fully encompasses the trouble, actually more moderate than elsewhere, of the traditional bike, which leaves 28% on the ground; in Germany it fell by 36% in the same period.”
However, there is a wake-up call for the sector and in fact the Ancma is relaunching it with a communication campaign for cycling: “Now pedal” is the slogan. President Mariano Roman underlines “how important it is that the industry itself, with a message of positivity, rallies around the value, tradition and strength that it is able to express and promotes the unique peculiarities of the bicycle in the face of the great interest that still attracts, due to the real and documented growth prospects and the many potential new users”. And in fact he asks that incentives be cut on the use of two wheels.
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– 2024-05-02 01:22:31
