Will Butler-Adams doesn’t have much patience for cars, or public transport for that matter. Especially on a warm day. “What on earth are you doing?” he says. “Scuttling under the ground, getting shoved into a metal tube, being belched on. Get on a bike and whiz across town and discover your city.”
Unsurprisingly, the Brompton Bicycle Ltd. boss wants urban workers to jump on one of his bikes. The fold-up models are popular with commuters who can carry them on to public transport, and also have an army of international devotees.
“Politics has become so short-term,” says Butler-Adams, over a cup of tea in his cluttered office. “As soon as the slightest little upset comes, they won’t do anything. So they stagnate, and sit there and fester.” At a starting price of £950 , Brompton bikes are not cheap. For a super lightweight, titanium version, prices can reach more than £4,415. To spread the cost — and to allow customers to try out a Brompton — the company has introduced a subscription, where cyclists can pay monthly to rent a bike.
“There is total carnage in our industry at the moment,” says Butler-Adams. He says some manufacturers forced shops to take the stock, flooding the market with bikes. For Brompton, it means customers may be tempted to buy a competitor’s bike at a discount. The squeeze on margin was shown in Brompton’s numbers. While sales rose 40% to £106.9 million in the year to March 2022, pretax profits fell from £9.7 million a year earlier to £7.3 million. Nonetheless, it is still planning a £100 million new factory in Kent, southeast of London.Brompton’s margins have been squeezed by rising costs of logistics, wages, raw materials — as well as the impact of Brexit. Butler-Adams says another price rise will soon be necessary.
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