First Data of Covid Bike Boom in June and July Import Figures

Bicycle import figures are now in for June and July and the expected surge is starting to appear in the data.

June was strong with 99,554 bicycles imported. That’s 46% up from 67,937 in June 2019 and the second highest June total over the past decade.

July saw a record number of bicycles imported into Australia for that month, 136,449 units which was up from 94,350 for July 2019.

These numbers are still far from all-time record months. Typically, the biggest months of the year are October and November, when stock arrives for the Christmas / summer season when imports have occasionally exceeded 200,000 units in one month.

For June and July, most of the growth was in adult bicycles. Children’s bicycle imports were also up slightly in both months.

The 2019/20 financial year finished at 1,170,987 units. This was slightly up on 2018/19 which finished with 1,132,225 units, but still well below the peak year of 2014/15 which saw 1,419,825 bicycles imported into Australia.

As we stated in our previous import data article that summarised the May and June figures, it will be many months until the full impact of the Covid-19 induced bike boom is reflected in the import figures.

At the time of writing this (September) bicycle supply is still not meeting demand and both retailer and wholesalers’ stocks are still depleted. Due to the difficulties and time lags in ramping up production, particularly of components, and the ongoing surging demand across the northern hemisphere, it’s looking more likely that supply to Australia will not fully ‘catch up’ until the second half of 2021.