The total Finnish cycling market volumes this year will be almost the same as they were in 2020, roughly 270 000 units sold.
What’s remarkable is that in 2018 e-bikes only had a 4.4% market share. This year it’s already above 15%. It means 40 000 e-bikes sold this year in Finland. Consumers today are also willing to pay significantly more for their e-bikes as average prices have climbed a somewhat whopping 20% when compared to 2018.
Cycling is now more popular than ever
When comparing 2020 and 2021 total volumes, it seems that what before was a growing market has now stagnated. This is due to the fact that the 2021 global supply chain shortage stalled the deliveries as the manufacturers struggled to meet the highest ever demand of bikes.
This has created a pent-up demand which most likely will result in total volume growth as the global supply chain eventually (hopefully) starts to normalize.
All-in-all, Covid-19 positively affected cycling to gain popularity.
Indoor sport arenas have at times been either closed or limited in availability and travelling has been somewhat difficult as using public transportation has started to represent itself as a risky business.
It has made cycling the most natural way to commute and explore. Today, cycling is in its prime in Finland, following the same trend as in other European Union countries. And e-bikes make this commuting and exploring even more enjoyable.
In tax-free benefit bikes, e-bikes dominate the market share
When we compare the previous figures to the recently formed Finnish tax free benefit bike market and its total volumes (of which Vapaus represents a significant part), the difference in e-bike market share is massive, up to 60% of all Vapaus benefit bikes being e-bikes with an average price of a benefit bike being 3 200€ including all bike types.
This can be explained by the ease of benefit bikes. e-Bikes being relatively pricey, an opportunity to have one as a part of gross salary (or in the best case on top of the gross salary) without any own capital makes getting one quite appealing.
There’s also the financial perk. Having a bike as a benefit bike, even if the benefit value would be fully deducted from an employee’s gross salary, typically results as 20 to 40% savings when compared to market prices.
Benefit bikes represents up to 40% of all the bikes sold in Germany
As we are in constant dialogue with our international channel partners we have learned that in Germany benefit bikes represent up to a massive 40% market share of the German total volumes.
In Finnish market perspective such a market share with current total volumes would mean 108 000 benefit bikes.
With the current total volumes and e-bike ratio this would mean close to 90 000 e-bikes sold in Finland total, of which benefit e-bikes alone would be 64 800 units.
Even though benefit bikes in Finland have gained popularity rapidly, the German insight tells us that it’s obvious that there’s a significant room for growth in coming years.
Cycling (and e-bikes) complement solutions to achieve sustainability goals
It’s hard to find anything negative in cycling.
Using them produces zero local emissions, improves overall healthiness, manufacturing uses less scarce natural resources compared to cars and even building infrastructure for cycling is cheaper than building highways.
And what we can tell from our data is that Vapaus benefit bikers do really use their bikes a lot!
92% of our users say that having a benefit bike has significantly increased their total cycling while 56% of them say that it also has reduced using a private car.
In terms of impact, these are really impressive figures and should act as quite an incentive for the government and employers to keep pushing supporting cycling in general (as well as benefit bikes).
As e-bikes have become more and more popular our data indicates that they indeed increase bike usage and have a potential to replace other less sustainable forms of commuting.
In the big picture achieving seemingly ambitious sustainability goals are a real struggle. And cycling of course will not solve it all.
Investing in supporting cycling however is a fast, cheap and hyper tangible action to take which has both an immediate and long term positive impact on many fronts. It complements other solutions.
It’s all about making those good moves more and more often. And with e-bikes they’re even easier to make.
Ps. If you’re interested in having your dream bike as a benefit bike see our calculator to find out how much you could potentially gain from the benefit bike.
Read more about the topic: https://www.bike-eu.com/market/nieuws/2021/11/covid-19-boosts-e-bike-sales-in-finland-10141782
