China International Bicycle Fair brings big names to Shanghai

Nearly 1,460 leading bicycle companies from home and abroad participated in the 32nd China International Bicycle Fair, which is being held in Shanghai from Sunday to Wednesday.

Industry big names including Giant, Merida and Shimano can be found at the fair.

More than 600 products were showcased at the special exhibition area featuring creative technology breakthroughs. Another 30 products were demonstrated at the area designated to show the progress in the bicycle industrial transformation and upgrading in China.

The exhibition also held two business matchmaking meetings, inviting over 100 overseas buyers and exhibitors to meet the purchase demand in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

According to China Bicycle Association, the country's bike makers, with a respective annual sales revenue of at least 20 million yuan ($2.77 million), churned out a total of 7.31 million bikes in the first quarter of 2024, up 15 percent from a year earlier. In the first three months, their sales revenue climbed 2.3 percent year-on-year on average, while their net profit grew by 13 percent on a yearly basis.

China exported nearly 11 million bicycles in the first quarter, up 29.3 percent year-on-year and 13.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2023. Nearly 2.3 million bikes were exported to the United States, spiked 47.2 percent year-on-year, while the number exported to Russia jumped 52.1 percent year-on-year to 930,000.

Bike export to Iraq surged the most significantly by 111 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, followed by the 74.2 percent increase to Canada and 71.6 percent to Vietnam, according to China Bicycle Association.

As for the domestic market, downhill mountain bikes, gravel road bikes, triathlon bikes and electric assist bicycles have gained increasing popularity among the Chinese consumers, according to the Association.