Derby Cycle CEO Mathias Seidler (left) and Focus UK country manager Chris Needs
Re-Focus-ing on the UK
Derby Cycle’s chief exec officer Mathias Seidler tells BikeBiz how turning to independent bike dealers has proved a recipe for success for Focus in the UK. Jonathon Harker asks the questions…
IT’S PERHAPS reassuring when you find that even those at the very top of the bicycle industry tree are cycle enthusiasts. Bike industry goliath Derby Cycle – which sold 480,000 bicycles and achieved €235.5million revenue in 2010/2011 – took up a huge exhibiting space at Eurobike showcasing Focus, Univega, Rixe and Cervelo. Soon after being introduced to its CEO Matthias Seidler, BikeBiz was being enthusiastically taken through a series of pictures the chief executive had taken during a cycle trip to London during the Olympics. “The infrastructure, I was amazed by
that. I had to show other people what the UK has done. ‘Cycling Super Highways?’ – that’s incredible. The UK is getting there far quicker than anyone else.” Perhaps he was flattering BikeBiz’s home country, but Seidler insisted that
Derby Cycle is targeting the UK with its Focus bicycle brand
the UK’s cycle market has matured hugely over the past decade or so. “Ten years ago the UK had the lowest
average price for a bike in Western Europe and now it’s the European market with the highest growth in top quality bikes. Things can change pretty rapidly. And if only a quarter of the changes in London’s infrastructure are happening in other parts of the country…it’s tremendous.” It’s not just the growth of the UK market that has been hitting the headlines over the past 12 months – it’s also been a big year for Derby Cycle: it merged with Pon Holdings, which in turn acquired Cervelo, and all in the last year. But despite significant changes behind the scenes, the firm’s approach to the UK cycle market remains the same as it established around a year ago when it adopted a direct distribution model for Focus on these shores. Seidler states: “Our strategy for Derby Cycle in the UK hasn’t in any way been changed,