DOETINCHEM, the Netherlands – First indications show that the sale of e-bikes started well this year. At least, this is reported for the Netherlands by dealer cooperative Dynamo Retail Group. What in particular stands out in its report is that, despite already high sales, there’s no sign whatsoever on saturation of the Dutch e-bike market.
A recent Dynamo Retail Group market survey involving 271 Dutch stores shows that in terms of turnover bike sales in January 2019 was up 16 percent compared to the same period one year earlier. Dynamo Retail Group is operating shop formats like Bike Totaal, Dynamo Retail Service, Fietswereld and Profile de Fietsspecialist in Holland, Belgium and Germany and has some 800 affiliated dealers/members.
For e-bikes the Dynamo Retail Group survey shows that money-wise the sale of electric city bikes increased 19 percent while e-Trekking bikes did even better with a close to 21 percent growth. However, these successes come at a price. And that is that sales of regular bicycles is under pressure. All categories show declines varying 19 percent for Mountainbikes to 20 percent for road bikes.
Declines in turnover were also recorded for P&A sales (minus 4.4 percent) and apparel (minus 13.4 percent).
That the sale of e-bikes showed continued growth in January 2019 is remarkable in view of the fact that it has seen a huge increase in the past year. The super summer of 2018 contributed greatly to this. In the first ten months of 2018 sales of city e-bikes grew by 38 percent in turnover.