How many bikes on the planet?

Have you ever wondered how many motorcycles there are in the world? It’s a tricky question, but one that is intriguing. The best place to start is to ask which nation sells the most motorcycles. Chances are most would say the Japanese (historical bias), the Chinese (Trump bias) or the Europeans (Ducati/BMW bias). But all those answers are wrong.

The biggest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world, miles ahead of the rest, is India. As well as churning out over 35,000 small and medium capacity bikes per day, India also makes international rides for the likes of Harley Davidson, KTM, BMW, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Aprilia. That’s not to mention the local giants of Hero, Mahindra, Bajaj and Royal Enfield. The ability to supply over 20 million bikes a year, combined with a rising middle class and a vast road network, makes India the biggest bike owning nation on earth. So we will start by counting Indian bikes.

Household numbers

Due partly to the lack of consistent registration of bikes across the subcontinent, it’s hard to pin down accurate on-road numbers. But with the percentage of households who admit to owning a bike, and census figures of the current number of households nationwide, we can make a good estimate. Using those figures, and assuming that Indian bikes last for 10 years (at most) on the country’s dire roads, it would be fair to guess there are about 100 million bikes in use in India right now.

Next on the big users’ list would be China. But unlike India, this is not a growing market right now. 2018 saw a pathetic 15.5 million sales which was down almost 10% on 2017. The reason is not the rubbish roads. The change in China’s bike buying is being driven mostly by emissions restrictions. This has meant millions of smoky bikes banned since 2012, and even tighter regulations from last year. So despite having way more people than India, we estimate China only has some 90 million bikes on its roads.

Next on the list – and no surprise – would be Indonesia. Anybody that has visited Bali or Jakarta would agree there are a lot of bikes there. The country has annual sales of almost 6.5 million bikes, and it is estimated that some 85% of Indo households own at least one motorbike. Current figures from the Indonesian Motorcycle Association (AISI) indicate about 80 million bikes currently trundling about the nation’s 17,000 scattered islands.

The next few places on the bike owners list is dominated by Southeast Asia. This includes Vietnam (45 million), Thailand (18 million), Pakistan at 17 million and with over 7,000 new bikes sold every day, Malaysia (13 million) and rising, and the Philippines (7.5 million).

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Add on 15 million or so from African countries like Nigeria, which counts one in three households (there are 42 million) as owning a motorbike, plus South America, with excellent growth but a lower starting bar. Throw in an extra couple of million new bikes a year, then knock off a conservative 5-10 million for being broken, wrecked, stored, used as boat anchors or being invested in. Add it up and you end up with roughly 380 million bikes wheeling around the world, according to our two-finger calculation analysis. Admittedly that’s way down compared to the 1 billion cars on the road worldwide, but as we all know, bikes are better; both for human happiness, and for fuel efficiency.

Things are changing though. Take an enlightened country like Colombia (quiet at the back) to see how things are changing. Because the government is less under the corporate thumb of the major car makers, it has introduced bike friendly measures that have helped boost two-wheel usage by just under 15% per year in recent years, with almost every household admitting to owning a motorbike. Today in Colombia over 50% of vehicle parks are for bikes, and two-wheeled vehicle sales are twice that of cars. As a result, Colombia has been selected by several Asian manufacturers including Indian giant Hero MotoCorp as its South American manufacturing hub.

Times are changing

The bike landscape is also changing thanks to rise of electric bikes. The biggest producer of electric scooters and bikes is naturally China, where manufacturers like Zongshen, Yadea, BYVIN, Wuyang Honda, Opai Electric, Sykee, Terra Motor and Zero churned out some 18 million units in 2018, but only exported about 20% of them. Now the Chinese market is getting highly competitive, the manufacturers are looking at overseas markets, in particular Europe, where stiffer Euro5 laws combined with a city scooter culture make them a likely success story. Overall bike numbers probably won’t change much though. Electric bikes will replace, not add to existing numbers, as first world eco-friendly city dwellers go electric. But Indian rural farmers will still putt happily about on smoky Bajajs.

So there you have it – that’s how many bikes there are on the planet. Useful? Probably only in the pub, but you never know.