Canyon finished 2025 with revenue of €738 million, down 6% year-on-year, while adjusted EBITDA, a measure of operating profitability, fell 34%, according to full-year results published on March 12 by majority owner Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL).
The figures, made publicly available on the company's site, mark a third consecutive year of losses for the German direct-to-consumer bike brand, whose troubles were already visible through a series of layoffs and a leadership shake-up over the past 12 months.
GBL and Canyon leadership attributed the decline to oversupply and aggressive discounting across the bike industry. "Canyon continues to navigate a challenging market environment marked by oversupply and discounting, especially in electric and non-electric mountain and urban bikes," its full-year result document explained. "However, performance in Canyon’s road and gravel segments remains robust."
The results help explain why Canyon moved in January to cut up to 320 jobs, roughly 20% of its headquarters workforce in Koblenz and Amsterdam.
In an in-depth piece published by Velora in December, Arnold explained that the landscape had been severely impacted by oversupply and a broad misconception of the cycling market potential from the major brands.
"How crazy can this whole industry be that we all believed the bicycle was the new gold?" Arnold said.
"Everybody was thinking it was the boom and it will always go like this. Because our supply chain is so long, everybody over-ordered and then we had all the over-supply which still is some problem today." He has spoken publicly over the last few months about laying new foundations which effectively rightsize the business for the market.
A costly battery recall affecting several high-end e-MTB models – which GBL's report euphemistically referred to as 'one-off quality initiatives'– added to the most recent pressure. Canyon said it had resolved the issue for most customers and re-released the models in early 2026.
GBL, which acquired a majority stake in Canyon in 2020 for around €400 million, has written down the value of its holding by 43% compared with 2023 levels.
Arnold has said Canyon is targeting €1 billion in annual revenue by 2028, with e-bikes, an omnichannel retail push and expansion in the US and China forming the core of that plan.
Cover image credit: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
