Bike and eBike sales value now 40% of Pon Holdings auto business income

In this guest feature micromobility expert Roman Meliška outlines sales driven shifts in micromobility, and the commercial opportunity that eMobility and eBikes represent for the auto industry.

Here Roman explores the trend by examining the latest reporting from Pon Holdings, a multifaceted group with long standing auto industry business, and an early mover with its pivot to cycling, and eMobility. Over to you Roman…

Pon Bike, the largest bike and eBike empire in the world with brands like Koninklijke Gazelle, Cervélo, Cannondale, Kalkhoff or Urban Arrow, generated €2,4 billion in revenue in 2022. That’s quite a team performance, right? Even more, when you consider the following:

• Within the family Pon Holdings, the bike and eBike business has already grown to 40% of what their traditional automotive division generates (€6 billion) – from a clean z e r o just a decade ago.
• While Pon has been a VW Group importer to the Netherlands for 75 years, their bike and e-bike operations started only in 2011 with the acquisition of Koninklijke Gazelle.
• 75% of Dutch people own a Pon made bike
• 4 million Dutch cyclists use a Pon bicycle daily
• 1 in 5 eBikes in Germany is a Pon brand

Beside manufacturing and retailing, the company lead by Janus Smalbraak is consistently investing in new services and business models in the micromobility space via its investment arm Ponooc, with portfolio companies including the cargo bike rental DOCKR, mapping app Bikemap, data platform Vianova I/O, mobility insurer Laka or the largest bike subscription in Europe Swapfiets. A joint venture with Porsche AG called Porsche eBike Performance is up and running since 2022. And these are still the early days….

Special attention: since Pon acquired Europcar Mobility Group together with VW Group last year, keep your eyes on the integrated mobility offerings coming from that team. Europcar’s new CEO Alain Favey (ex Bentley, Škoda and Porsche Salzburg) is joining on June 1.

To read more about CI.N reported Pon Holdings investment in micromobility, click here.

Europe’s leading micromobility event

Micromobility Europe takes place on June 8th-9th at the Kromhouthal, in Amsterdam. We anticipate many auto industry leaders will attend, seeing the event as a window into the cycling based, eMobility focused, world in which they are increasingly engaged.

I and my Micromobility Industries friends will be there, hosting a discussion panel on the big automotive family holdings taking different paths to their mobility future.

For those keen to attend, click here.

Image Credit: Pon Holdings