Australian Bicycle Imports Smash All-Time Records

We’ve now received the bicycle import data for January and February 2021 and the record-breaking run of monthly imports started in 2020 has continued. 

In January a total of 146,706 bicycles were imported consisting of 40,492 kids bikes and 106,214 adult bikes. That total made it the all-time record in January by over 50% compared to the previous record high of 97,440 units in January 2018. 

Last year there were only 68,494 bikes imported for the month, so January 2021 was up 114% on January 2020. 

The momentum continued into February with 119,335 bikes being imported. That was up 163% on February last year, when the total was 45,232 bikes. It was an all-time record February by 55% compared to the previous record of 76,689 bikes, set in February 2016. 

Whilst there are always monthly fluctuations, so we should never read too much into the figures for any one month, every month for the current financial year has either been an all-time record or very close to it. In total, 1,340,188 bikes have been imported so far for the 2020/21 financial year. That’s already 14% up on the 2019/2020 total of 1,170,987, but with four months of figures still to be added for the current financial year. 

In fact, it’s already the second highest financial year on record, just 79,637 units short of the all-time record set in 2014 of 1,419,825 units. 

Normally, the final four months of March to June are the quietest time of the year for bicycle imports, but these are not normal times for the Australian bike industry and many importers have told us that they still have bikes on backorder or waiting for delayed shipments. 

Therefore, it could be that total imports for this financial year finish close to 1.7 million units. If this happens it would be a 45% increase, year on year over the 2019/20 financial year and 20% up on the all-time record year.