The company expects to make a loss again in 2023, but owner Pon will continue to deposit additional funds for the time being. Swapfiets does take measures to limit the losses.
At Swapfiets you can take out a subscription, with which you can rent a regular bicycle for just under 20 euros per month. You pay more for an electric bicycle. If you have a flat tire or a bent front wheel, Swapfiets will solve it without charging extra costs.
The Netherlands is still the largest market
The number of customers continues to increase, by just under 5 percent to 269,000. Turnover also grew: by 37 percent to 71.7 million euros. This is partly because a growing number of customers are opting for an electric bicycle.
Despite the international growth, half of the turnover still comes from the Netherlands. To cushion the losses, Swapfiets is closing a number of branches, all of which are abroad: in France and Germany. It also departs from Milan and therefore from Italy.
Non-Paying Customers
Swapfiets is still experiencing problems with customers who are behind on payments or who do not return their bicycle when their subscription has ended. Bicycles are also often broken or lost.
On the ‘path to future profitable growth’, Swapfiets already focused last year on tackling customers who do not pay and customers who do not return their bicycle. A total of more than 17 million euros was set aside for this purpose.
It also stopped electric scooters and more electric bicycles were added.
In 2023, Swapfiets wants to continue collecting bicycles from defaulters and reducing the number of broken bicycles. It also wants to put money into trackers in bicycles, to find them and reduce the number of lost bicycles.
Another loss in 2023
In the coming years, Swapfiets will recover from its losses and start making a profit, says the management. But this year there will still be losses. That loss will be lower than last year.
Meanwhile, owner Pon still has to keep pumping money into Swapfiets. In 2022, this amounted to 34.5 million euros. An additional amount will be added this year, but the amount is still a secret. The loss for 2023 will in any case be made up.
‘You pay for convenience’
“It is difficult for these types of concepts to make a profit,” says Rico Luman, mobility analyst at ING. According to him, there is potential for replacing transport by car with the (electric) bicycle.
According to Luman, young people in particular now own a car less often. “Up to a distance of 25 to 30 kilometers you can easily replace the car with an electric bicycle. That is also increasingly being facilitated by employers.”
But if you pay for a regular Swapfiets for a year, you will lose almost 220 euros. For that money you can also buy a second-hand bicycle yourself and then you will enjoy it for more than a year. Renting an electric bicycle for a year costs almost 714 euros. “It’s also laziness behind it,” says Luman.
2023-08-15 14:38:11
#Defaulters #broken #bicycles #cost #Swapfiets #million
