Signs of a turnaround: At Eurobike’s pre-show press conference, industry voices from both sides of the Atlantic shared cautiously optimistic market figures.
With representatives of the industry, advocacy groups and bicycle tourism from both Germany and the United States in attendance, Eurobike’s pre-opening press conference reflected the global and broad appeal of the show. Both the numbers of exhibitors at this year’s show and Germany’s first-quarter bicycle sales and domestic production statistic prompted some cautious optimism. contradicting the doomsday prophets.
Despite all the talk of big names skipping the 33rd edition of Eurobike, the world’s leading bicycle tradeshow still counts more than 1,500 exhibiting companies from over 60 countries. As such, show attendees will still get a pretty comprehensive overview on the bicycle industry and its latest trends. The indoor and outdoor exhibiting space cover an area of more than 130,000 m2 and pretty much all aspects of cycling. Visitors do not only get to see the new products, but can try them, as 189 exhibitors are offering 1,200 test vehicles ready to be ridden on the outdoor test track.
Apart from networking and scouting for the latest trends, international trade visitors are also interested in hard market data since Europe is one of the key markets for many of the exhibiting companies. As the CEO of Germany’s Zweirad Industrie Vereinigung (ZIV), Burkhard Stork provided insight into how the bicycle market has developed in Germany in the first quarter of the year, which are important metric given it is Europe’s largest single market. The good news is that the numbers are up year-on-year for the first time in quite a while, in part due to a low base of comparison.
According to Stork, a total of 385,000 bicycles were sold in the first quarter of 2025 in Germany, an increase of 10 percent year-on-year. E-bikes fared slightly better, with units sold growing by 11 percent to 500,000 units. Overall bicycle and e-bike sales grew by almost 11 percent year-on-year to a total of 885,000 units, signaling a promising start to 2025. At 13.5 percent, Germany’s domestic production grew even more dynamically to 760,000 units, with the production of e-bikes performing even better, recording a growth of almost 16 percent.
Leasing providers continue to report robust revenue numbers and extend their staff in Germany, and leasing models have helped buoy sales in the upper price segments. And thanks to the growing number of bicycles and e-bikes in use, independent bicycle dealers are seeing growing turnover from repair and service works as well. But real improvements in terms of safe infrastructure are necessary to appeal to the majority of the population who are not using bicycles, said both Zukunft Fahrrad’s managing director Wasilis von Rauch and Jenn Dice, president and CEO of U.S. bicycle advocacy group People for Bikes.