DRESDEN, Germany (BRAIN) — Germany-based bike e-commerce retailer BIKE24 said its sales were up just 1% in the first half of its fiscal year to 128.8 million euros ($132 million) amid what the retailer called "a challenging environment." The company pointed to its expansions into the French, Spanish and Italian markets as bright spots for the period.
The retailer, whose stock is publicly traded in Germany, said it's full-bike sales were up 12% in the half compared to the same period last year. Its number of active customers rose by 7% to 850,000.
BIKE24 said it achieved an average growth rate of 102% in the localized markets of Spain, France and Italy.
"The long-term megatrends driving our business continue unabated, and sustainable mobility is becoming increasingly important in times of rising energy prices across Europe. Nevertheless, the effects of war, high inflation and worried consumers have now also affected our business," said founder and CEO Andrés Martin-Birner. "However, the considerable gains in full-bikes as well as in our localized markets clearly indicate that our expansion strategy is paying off. For us, this is an affirmation to consistently continue our path. We also bring experience and long-term vision to the table."
The operation's gross margin was 29.1% in the first half, down from 33.3% last year. "The decline reflects the anticipated normalization of the gross margin after the exceptionally high levels seen last year," the company said.
Timm Armbrust, CFO of BIKE24, said,"We continue to see our development extremely positive over the longer term, even though we had to reduce our expectations for the current year because of the significantly tougher macroeconomic environment during Q2. However, benchmarked against the pre-Covid quarter Q2 2019, we have almost doubled consolidated revenues and even quadrupled them in our localized markets. And we have always been highly profitable, while our financial stability is providing us with the necessary resilience to continue to safely navigate the company through these challenging times and to successfully develop it further."
BIKE24 is building a logistics center near Barcelona, Spain, that will open this year and serve customers across Southern Europe. The company launched local e-commerce sites in Spain, France and Italy this year and expects to add local sites in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg in the first half of 2023.
The company revised its forecast for the full fiscal year. It now expects sales to grow by between -5% and 5%, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of between 3 and 6%.
The retailer's stock is traded on the Frankfurt exchange under the BIKE symbol. After its stock price peaked at about 27 euros per share last August, it has declined steadily and is now trading below 4 euros per share. Quote from the Frankfurt exchange.
