Paris, France – French industry federation, Union Sport & Cycle have reported details of the bicycle market in France for 2017. The federation announced that last year 2.78 million bicycles were sold in France—up 0.2% from the previous year. Total revenue from bicycle sales last year was €1.28 billion—a healthy 9.6% increase from 2016.

Union Sport & Cycle unhesitatingly put the increases down to sharply-rising sales of VAE (pedelecs). In 2017, 255,000 pedelec units were sold in France—a large 90% hike on the number of units sold in 2016. The average price for all pedelecs was €1,568.

Indicating the recent national bonus for the purchase of an Electric Assisted Bike, President of Cycleurope Industries and Co-President of UNION Sport & Cycle, Jérôme Valentin, stated “The growth in sales of electric-assisted bicycles has accelerated in 2017. The VAE bonus has created a very important leverage effect for the bike market in 2017, much more in terms of media coverage than financial terms. Suddenly, the interest of the electric bike was brought to the attention of the French.”

▲ President of Cycleurope Industries and Co-President of UNION Sport & Cycle, Jérôme Valentin noted that a National bonus scheme for the purchase of pedelecs suddenly brought electrically-assisted bikes to the attention of the French.

The report also noted that although Multisport chains and specialty retailers remained the mainstay distribution channels for bicycle sales in France, internet sales had increased by 22% from 2016, and last year help a market share of 8% of total turnover.

Complete statistics are available from Union Sport & Cycle