Pierer Mobility opens subsidiary in Taiwan to support supply

Pierer Mobility has announced within its first half financial statement that it will open a subsidiary in Taiwan to be known as Pierer E-Bikes Asia Ltd.

The move hopes to address supply chain shortcomings that have proved particularly tricky to overcome, most notably from Taiwan the prickly issue of semi-conductor and other electronic component supply.

“It will provide significant support to the Pierer E-Bikes Group in its supply chain management and therefore reduce the procurement risk by providing direct access to the Asian market,” wrote the group statement.

Elsewhere in the financials there was word of unfinished motorbike and eBike goods which were unable to be sold in the first half, which ultimately returned a 3.7% decline in sales of such goods versus H1 2021. Sales tallied 51,417 bikes and eBikes for the half.

“Due to backlogs of parts – especially in the area of electronics – motorcycles and also e-bicycles could not be fully assembled. These vehicles were therefore delayed in going on sale until the start of the second half of the year,” said Pierer.

The bicycle division as a whole holds most ground in the DACH region at 68% of sales, with the rest of Europe making up a further 15% and the rest of the world (largely North America) making up 17% of sales.

All things considered, the forward looking statement is optimistic that many of the headwinds faced can be overcome and, as a result, guidance has been upped. Pierer Mobility expects full year 2022 revenue growth of between 10% and 15%, up from 6% to 10%. An EBIT margin of 8% to 10% and EBITDA margin in the range of 15% and 17% are confirmed.

Finally, it is notable that the group has swelled its headcount, up 768 people versus the same period last year. 5,656 employees now span the business with just over a fifth based in research and development. Most of the appointments made in the past year were production staff, brought in to help ramp up the output of eBike growth, in particular as the business is now also the parent to Felt Bicycles.