E-scooter market takes off
New Zealanders like Lime scooters so much they’re deciding to buy their own.
Data from price comparison site PriceSpy shows demand for scooters is accelerating.
From 2017-18 there was an 84 per cent increase in hits in the shopping category of ‘‘scooters’’. The number of e-scooter products on the site grew 35 per cent.
Liisa Matinvesi-Bassett, PriceSpy’s New Zealand country manager, said: ‘‘Following the launch of Lime in New Zealand last year, we have seen phenomenal growth in the overall popularity of scooters.
‘‘For example in November, one month after the arrival of Lime, the shopping category of scooters received 160 per cent more clicks than the month previous.’’
Consumer interest spiked in the lead-up to Christmas and grew through January.
A spokesman for Trade Me said it, too, was seeing ‘‘incredible demand’’ for electric scooters. ‘‘In the last week, we’ve had approximately 44,000 searches for electric scooters . . . There are currently more than 1000 listings for electric scooters.’’
Rene van Rijn, a product manager at Bikes International, which operates Bike Barn, said his company had seen 1000 per cent growth in sales of e-scooters across the country in the past year.
It was a competitive market, he said, with major variation between models – including at what speed they could safely travel. –Stuff