Carousell reports an increase in bicycle sales as demand exceeds current supply

According to Singaporean smartphone and web-based marketplace, Carousell, there has been a notable increase in bicycle sales on the platform since the fourth quarter of 2020, and the trend has sustained in the first two months of 2021. A total of 63,345 transactions were made in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore with Malaysia as the second top market on Carousell with almost 18,000 bicycles sold in 2020.

As the world went into various phases of lockdowns in March 2020, the demand for fitness items started to spike in March 2020 and hit a new peak in August 2020. Demand for bicycles followed suit and also broke out as the new trend regionally.

According to a statement by Carousell, the total searches for bicycles in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore increased by 1.6 times to 18.5 million in 2020. 

While the demand is still growing regionally, with an average of 1.6 million searches for bicycles each month in 2021, Malaysia makes over 160,000 searches a month, whereas Singapore sees the most interest at over 1 million searches.

This echoes overall search trends in Malaysia, where Google reported a 250% increase in searches for the term “bicycle exercise” in their ‘Year In Search 2020: Malaysia’ report. ‘

The most popular bicycle type in Malaysia is the road bike followed by mountain bicycles are and as for brands, the American brand Specialized is most popular in Malaysia whereas in Singapore, British brand Brompton was the most popular. 

Another trend caught by the marketplace is the preference for secondhand bicycles and in Malaysia, 76.04% of the transactions were for secondhand bicycles. 

“As a classifieds marketplace platform, the availability of listings are contributed by our users and comparing how the transactions for bicycles have been steadily increasing on Carousell with the rapid growth in searches, we can see that demand currently exceeds supply,” said Country Head of Carousell Malaysia, Tang Siew Wai. “This means that there is still growth potential for casual users and business sellers to come to Carousell to sell their bicycles to the ready pool of buyers and earn some extra income.”