Wels, AUSTRIA (BRAIN) — Pierer Mobility AG — the Austrian company that owns Felt Bicycle and the Husqvarna, GASGAS and R Raymon e-bike brands — said its sales of e-bikes were down 12% in the first half, partly due to supply chain constraints.
Pierer sold 34,829 e-bikes in the first half, down from 39,601 sold in the first half of 2021. Counting e-bikes and standard bikes, Pierer sold a total of 51,417 units in the half, down 3.7% from the same period last year. Pierer's sales of conventional bikes were up, at 16,588 bikes compared to 13,777 in the period last year.
Pierer bought Felt Bicycle from Rossignol group last November.
Overall, Pierer recorded first-half sales of 1.15 billion euros ($1.15 billion), up 7.1% from the first half of 2021. It announced that its employee count increased by 768 workers to a total of 5,656. Company-wide, EBIT was 92.8 million euros, down from 102.6 million euros in the first half last year.
"Due to backlogs of parts – especially in the area of electronics – motorcycles and also e-bicycles could not be fully assembled. These vehicles were therefore delayed in going on sale until the start of the second half of the year," the company said.
Felt said that its bicycle division's most important sales markets are currently in Europe (Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland). In the first half, 68% of sales were made in the German speaking DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), 15% in the rest of Europe and 17% in other regions including North America.
PIERER E-Bikes GmbH, the company's e-bike division, opened a subsidiary in Taiwan, PIERER E-Bikes Asia Ltd., in June. The Taiwan facility "will provide significant support to the PIERER E-Bikes Group in its supply chain management and therefore reduce the procurement risk by providing direct access to the Asian market," the company said.
The company's management board increased its guidance for the 2022 financial year. It is now expecting revenue growth of between 10% and 15% (previously forecasted revenue growth for the 2022 financial year was 6 to 10%).
