If the year 2023 was fatal for several large bicycle manufacturers, like Scott or Accell Group, it nevertheless seems to have been more lenient for Pon Bike, owner of around twenty brands including Cervélo, Gazelle, Cannondale or Kalkhoff again.
The drop in demand, inflation and above all overstocking are the main reasons which explain the 2023 crisis experienced by the cycle sector. And this after exceptional years 2021 and 2022, due to the post Covid-19 effect. Last year and still today, bankruptcies and other resales are numerous.
Big players like Scott and Accell Group suffered so much that massive investments were made by their parent companies, to the tune of 160 and 250 million euros, respectively. Another group called Pon Bike is now making headlines, but in a completely different way.
A controlled turnover
Pon Bike is today one of the largest companies in electric bicycles and mechanical bicycles. It actually owns around twenty brands, including Cannondale, Gazelle, Cervélo, Kalkhoff, Urban Arrow and Swapfiets, to name a few. Like the others, Pon Bike’s turnover has fallen, but it is not catastrophic.
After a turnover of 2.4 billion euros in 2022, the group still managed to reach 2.3 billion in 2023. That is to say a drop of 100 million from one year to another, which, put into perspective with the astronomical sums just mentioned, does not seem very alarming either. However, one crucial piece of data is missing: the group’s net profit, which has been passed over in silence.
Overall, Pon Bike seems to have saved the furniture. “ Most of our quality brands have managed to survive thanks to their strong market positions», Explains Janus Smalbraak, CEO of Pon Holdings, in the columns ofBike EU. “This was the case of Gazelle in the Netherlands, Kalkhoff in Germany and Cervélo in the United States.”, we learn.
Large industrial investments
The diversity of its portfolio of brands and their ability to adapt well to their local markets have therefore allowed Pon Bike to fare better than the others. Janus Smalbraak also believes he is in “excellently positioned to benefit from long-term growth in the global bicycle market“.
To do this, Pon Bike did not skimp on resources with significant industrial investments: a new factory in Germany was created for its Cervélo and Santa Cruz brands, another was opened in 2022 also across the Rhine. , and a third will be operational at the end of the summer in Lithuania, with a production capacity of 450,000 units. To this must be added two other sites in the Netherlands, one in the USA and a final one in Brazil.