Portuguese bike manufacturer Carbon Team highlighted by Bloomberg
- Valerie Charoux
- Feb 2, 2023
- 2 min read
Portuguese bike manufacturer Carbon Team is highlighted by Bloomberg with the company producing high end, super light carbon fiber frames for “Made in Europe” bikes.
Bloomberg reports that bicycle sales in Europe jumped more than 10% in 2020, with retailers turning to Asia to meet demand.
Under the helm of Emre Ozgunes, Portuguese company Carbon Team is expected to gain an edge over producers in Asia whose transport costs have been rising, with delivery times sometimes stretching to more than a year. With a niche market of carbon-fiber frames and faster delivery times, the company is supplying growing demand in a global context facing supply bottlenecks.
According to Maeva Cousin, a senior economist at Bloomberg Economics, the “production of some goods like motorcycles, bicycles or jewelry, points to some small pockets of manufacturing returning to Europe.”
The “Made in Europe” brand is in demand and competition is not about price anymore.
In 2019, Portugal unseated Italy to become Europe’s biggest bicycle manufacturer. The industry employs about 10,000 people in Portugal and exports have grown more than 30% in each of the past two years, according to Portuguese bike association ABIMOTA.
In 2019, Carbon Team built an €8 million factory in Campia, north of Lisbon, and the company is now investing a further €5 million to expand. Emre Ozgunes expects to almost triple staff this year as production is set to jump from 3,500 frames to 18,000 frames in 2024. Sales from Carbon Team are expected to increase two-fold to reach €10 million.
The Confederation of the European Bicycle Industry predicts that, by 2030, up to 20% of carbon frames sold in the region could be manufactured in Europe.
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