Nearly 7 percent fewer bicycles were sold in Germany in the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 2012 due largely to the late arrival of spring, according to estimates released at Eurobike by Zweirad Industrie Verband (ZIV), the country's bicycling trade association.
The country’s bike industry produced approximately 1.65 million bicycles during the first half of the year, down approximately 2.4 percent, according to ZIV. While exports rose 9.3 percent to around 790,000 bicycles and e-bikes, imports declined by around 5 pecent to 1.8 million.
That left deliveries, or the sum of domestic production and imports minus exports, down 6.9 percent. ZIV attributed the decline to the long winter and unfavorable spring weather compared with the same period in 2012.
Despite the setback, sales of e-bikes in Germany are on pace to grow 13.2 percent to 430,000 units in 2013, which would be about 10 percent of all bicycle sales.
