“Bike is the new car,” said Thule’s president and CEO Mattias Ankarberg at the group’s earnings day, staged from the corporate HQ in Malmö, Sweden, on November 20. Thule has been making car roof racks since 1962, and automotive products still dominate in the brand’s growing portfolio.
However, the cycles category is an important one for the Swedish company. It recently acquired Australia’s Quad Lock, which was founded in 2011 by Rob Ward and Chris Peters, who first designed a secure smartphone mount for mountain bikes. Thule will launch a new cycle pannier attaching system next year and is expanding its range of on-car—and even on-bike—bike carrying racks.
“E-bikes have really changed the game,” Ankarberg told investors on the earnings call. “[They have changed] how we move around [in cities]. Today, about 50% of all the bikes sold in Germany are e-bikes. That enables easier and longer-distance bike commuting. Very good for Thule.”
He also welcomed EU initiatives to build more cycleways. “[The EU] has a multiyear, €7 billion project to build thousands of kilometers of new bike lanes,” he said.
While Thule had a strong start to 2025, Ankarberg said the unpredictable actions of the Trump administration make it hard to plan. “The situation changed with the introduction of tariffs,” he said. “There’s now a weaker consumer [market]. US consumer confidence numbers are almost at a 50-year low; worse than [during] most [previous] crises. Europe is [faring] better, but still far below historical levels. And if you ask consumers their intent to buy sport and outdoor products, most studies would say that’s about 20% below the year before, a little bit even lower in the US, and a bit better in Europe.”
Thule can ride this storm, he pointed out, through creative innovation.
“If you are working with premium products for passionate consumers, innovation plays a role. And with more know-how and as the global number one, we are bigger and have more resources than others. We can out-innovate other players in the field. We can grow our own market because when we develop new products that enthusiasts are willing to pay, that raises the price point, the premiumization, but [we] also find new use cases, new pockets, and develop the categories through our own efforts.”
Thule has won 38 design awards in the last two years, including from iF Design. In 2024, Thule won the Red Dot Design Team of the Year award, which has previously been awarded to Apple, Porsche, and Sony.
Aden Johnson, vice president of category management at Thule, an American who moved to Sweden last year, joined Ankarberg in highlighting Thule’s growing strength in bikes.
“About a third of our customers own mountain or gravel bikes. In Germany, our largest market, half of our consumers own e-bikes. That’s not just a nice-to-know stat. That means a lot for Thule because when you have an e-bike, you can carry more. You can go further with less effort. So, that is a tailwind for us. We should be able to sell more bike trailers, more child bike seats, and more bike panniers.
“I can attest to that personally. I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old. They go to school every day, including [through] snow, in the [Thule] Chariot trailer, uphill at a long distance. We would not be able to bring them to school in a bike trailer without an e-bike. It is a game changer for a lot of people.”
He then agreed with Ankarberg, saying, “Bike is the new car.”
Thule was founded in 1942 in the one-horse town of Hillerstorp, where it still fabricates roof racks and has an expansive test center that shakes, rattles, and rolls Thule’s growing number of products.
Thule has 2,800 employees at nine production facilities across seven countries, and last year it made sales of about $1 billion. The company is growing sales by 7% annually. The company has been public on Nasdaq Stockholm since an IPO in 2014. In 2024, Thule generated 4% of its net revenue in Sweden, 26% of it in the Americas, and 70% in Europe and the rest of the world. Thule generated 59% of its 2024 revenue in the bike carrier, sports carrier and roof rack segment; 18% of revenue in the RV category; 13% in the juvenile and pets category; and 10% in packs, bags and luggage, a category that includes duffel bags, backpacks, laptop bags, suitcases, rucksacks, consumer camera bags and consumer electronics cases.
Thule is a signatory to the global commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across its portfolio by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement target of a global average temperature rise not exceeding 1.5° C.