Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Sunday, December 8, 2019
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2019 Tour de France | 2019 Giro d'Italia
Good artists copy, great artists steal. - Pablo Picasso
Upcoming racing:
- Dec 15: Vlaamse Druivencross
- Dec 22: World Cup, Namur
- Dec 26: World Cup Heusden-Zolder
- Dec 27: Azencross
- Dec 29: Superprestige Diegen
- Jan 1: GP Sven Nys
- Feb 22: GP Leuven
Latest completed racing:
- Dec 7: IKO Cyclocross-Essen
- Nov 17: Flandriencross
- Nov 10: European Cyclocross Championships
- Nov 3: Telenet Superprestige Ruddervoorde
- Oct 27: Superprestige Gavere Cyclocross
- Oct 26: Cincinnati Cyclocross
- Oct 17-22: Tour of Guangxi
- Oct 20: Japan Cup
- Oct 20: Chrono des Nations
UAE Team Emirates begin winter training camp in Spain
The team sent me this update:
UAE Team Emirates will head to the Spanish city of Benidorm from 9-20 December for their winter team training camp in preparation for the 2020 season
UAE Team Emirates at the start of the 2019 Tour de France. Sirotti photo
The camp will be held at the Hotel Melia and marks the team's second pre-season gathering after a successful team-building camp in UAE in late October. There the riders participated in many events with team sponsors as well as with the UAE Team Emirates Youth Academy set-up for young aspiring cyclists from UAE.
The camp in Benidorm will be more focused on the forthcoming season, and will see all thirty riders as well as all the team staff members come together to train, plan and prepare for the forthcoming year.
A close look at Europe's e-Bike sales
Bike Europe sent me this:
DOETINCHEM, the Netherlands – ‘Giant To Sell 600,000 E-Bikes This Year.’ It was this report, published last October at Bike Europe’s online platform, bike-eu.com, that triggered our desire to dig deeper into the basic question of how big is the biggest in e-bikes? Could that be Giant? And would it, by selling that named huge number, get hold of the leading market position in Europe? But what about Accell Group then; the company that supposedly has been for years the number one in e-bikes in Europe?
Mid-October the Taipei Times reported that Giant had sold 290,000 electric bikes in the first half of 2019. That report was based on the financial figures published by listed Giant Group. The same report also mentioned that the Taiwanese maker aimed at selling another 310,000 e-bikes in the second half of 2019; bringing this year’s total to 600,000.
With it the company’s sales growth in electric bikes would stand at 56 percent compared to 2018.
Was this just wishful thinking of an ambitious financial employee focused on pushing Giant’s share price? Or was that figure of 600,000 e-bikes sold in 2019 more solid based?
The latter seems unlikely. Firstly because selling some 600,000 e-bikes this year will result in Giant delivering 56 percent more e-bikes compared to 2018. In that year the Taiwan (and European) maker shipped about 385,000 e-bikes. Of course e-bikes are selling extremely well in Europe currently, but not by a growth rate of 56 percent.
The second reason to raise doubts on the 600,000 supposedly sold e-bikes by Giant this year is because the company’s main manager, chairwoman Bonnie Tu, expected the company’s sales of electric bicycles to grow by about 30 percent this year and to contribute up to 25 percent of its total sales; up from last year’s 19 percent.
And thirdly because the Taipei Times report states that 2nd half year e-bike sales will top that of the first six months. That isn’t likely. Most sales to dealers in Europe by a company like Giant takes place in the first half of the year.
So, that leaves the question; how big is the biggest in e-bikes? In Europe that is, because the EU is the world’s biggest and main market for electric bicycles. For getting an answer on that question we took a close look into the financial reports of listed Accell Group NV of the past years. But, please note that what is mentioned below is on Accell e-bike sales in 2018. What we said on Giant’s electric bicycle sales is on their 2019 performance.
Accell Group’s 2018 annual report states “The e-bike trend was again very positive. The share of e-bikes in the total bicycle turnover amounted to 71 percent in 2018 (63 percent in 2017). The increase in e-bike turnover compared to 2017 stood at 17 percent.”
Value-wise this means that Accell Group’s total turnover made from the sale of regular bicycles as well as e-bikes stood in 2018 at 784.6 million euro and the e-bike share of 71 percent of that turnover amounts to 557.06m euro.
You can read the entire story here.
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