Staff members park and disinfect shared electric bicycles on the street side at Fancheng District of Xiangyang City, central China's Hubei Province, April 24, 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic here continuously wanes, the city's bicycle-sharing companies have gradually restarted their businesses. Shared vehicles, which were taken back by companies due to the virus outbreak, have been put into the streets again to facilitate citizens. (Xinhua/Xie Jianfei)

 
The number of electric bicycles in China has reached around 300 million, with annual sales of more than 30 million units in recent years, according to data from the China Bicycle Association.

In 2019, nearly 5 million high-end bicycles with a unit price of over 1,000 yuan (about 152 U.S. dollars), including lithium battery-powered models, were produced, accounting for 13.8 percent of the total electric bikes produced in China, according to the association.

China's bicycle industry mastered key production technologies during the 2016-2020 period, including the mass production of bike frames made with new materials and the development of transmission systems with independent intellectual property rights.

Safe and high-efficiency lithium battery technology has been identified as a key area for improvement in the coming five years, while efforts will be made to promote the consumption of leisure and sports bicycles, along with models for the elderly and children, according to the association.

In the first three quarters of this year, electric bike manufacturers reported total revenue of 67.76 billion yuan, up 26.6 percent year on year, with their profits surging 30.4 percent to 2.63 billion yuan, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Enditem