Australian Bicycle Imports Down for March 2020

By Phil Latz | 29th May 2020 |

The record low March import figures were largely the result of purchasing decisions made in late 2019. Who was to know back then what would happen in April that would suddenly empty Australia’s bicycle warehouses?

Bicycle imports into Australia were down for the month March with the total of 38,942 being the lowest March figure for any of the past 10 years.

It’s reasonable to assume that at least part of the reason for the low figure was disruption of factories, particularly in China, due to Covid-19.

Although the March figure was the lowest for a decade, March is usually a low month for bike imports, so it was actually only down by 4,937 units on the March 2019 total of 43,879.

Most of the drop was in adult bikes down from 28,735 to 24,412 units. Children’s bikes were down slightly from 15,144 to 14,530 units.

Combining the boom in family and children’s bike sales that has been happening since late March with the low import figures, not only for March but for January and February 2020, it’s not surprising that so many retailers and wholesalers have run out of stock of various models these categories.

It will be interesting to see when import figures pick up and by how much. That will give us a retrospective picture of roughly how big the sales surge has been and how long the lag time until stocks are restored to normal levels.

Unfortunately, it will be months until we see the data that will tell this story.

Bicycle Industries Australia kindly provides us the bicycle import figures, which are collected by Australian Customs.