Prophet

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Prophete GmbH u. Co. KG

logo
legal form GmbH & Co. KG
founding 1908
Seat Rheda-Wiedenbrück , Germany
management
  • Severine Lönne
  • Dirk Vroomen
  • Eberhard Dörr
Number of employees 280 (2017/2018)
sales 98 million euros (2017/2018)
Branch Bicycle manufacturer
Website www.prophete.de

Old logo of the Prophete company. The new logo has been in use since 2011.
Old logo of the Prophete company. The new logo has been in use since 2011.

The Prophete GmbH u. Co. KG , based in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, is a German manufacturer of bicycles , e-bikes (pedelecs) and bicycle accessories.

The company, including its subsidiary Cycle Union, has around 450 employees at four locations and generates annual sales of around 150 million euros (2017/2018 financial year) .

Brands

Prophete mainly produces and sells bicycles and bicycle accessories in the lower and middle price segments under its own name and under the sporty REX brand for hypermarkets , hardware stores, discounters and online retailers .

Prophete is represented in specialist retail with the brands Kreidler , VSF Fahrradmanufaktur and e-bikemanufaktur, which are produced and sold under the umbrella of Cycle Union Oldenburg GmbH, founded in 2004 in Oldenburg .

The scooter division, which has been run since 1995 with the brands Rex or RexMoto , Kreidler , Scooter and OffLimit , was discontinued in 2014 due to a lack of demand. The scooters of the specialist trade brand Kreidler were not affected by this for the time being and were still offered.

history

In 1908 Hermann Paul Prophete founded the company "Hermann Prophete - mechanical workshop, bicycles, speaking machines" in Halle an der Saale . In doing so, he laid the foundation for his family business. After the Second World War, Prophete was re-established as a bicycle wholesaler in Rheda-Wiedenbrück and retail stores were opened that sell their bicycles, for example. B. sold under the brand "Ems-Rad".

In the 1970s Prophete started producing bicycles and accessories in-house, and a branch was established in Rottendorf near Würzburg.

Two e-bikes from the Prophete brand from Rheda-Wiedenbrück.
Two e-bikes from the Prophete brand from Rheda-Wiedenbrück.

At the end of the 1990s Prophete took over the Kreidler Group as well as the bicycle manufacturer Schlote from Oldenburg with the Rabeneick brand and the VSF bicycle manufacturer with the aim of re-establishing themselves in the specialist trade with their brands. In 2004 the company expanded further with the takeover of the Memmingen bicycle dealer FEM (Fahrrad Epple Memmingen) . Prophete initially combined these three brands at the Oldenburg location under the name of Fachhandelszentrum Oldenburg . In 2007 the name was changed to Cycle Union .

In November 2010, the company announced that bicycle production in Rheda-Wiedenbrück would cease in mid-2011. Bicycles in the low-price sector for sale in discount stores and hardware stores will in future be produced exclusively in Romania and India , while higher-priced bicycles will continue to be produced in Oldenburg .

From 2011 to 2015 Prophete expanded its range to include fitness equipment that was offered under the Rex Sport brand . The aim was to compensate for the strong seasonal fluctuations in the bicycle business and to use the sales power of the trading partners in the winter season as well. However, Prophete did not succeed in achieving the goals it had set itself in the home fitness area and began selling the remaining stocks of fitness equipment in early 2015. Prophete has been concentrating exclusively on bicycles, pedelecs and bicycle accessories since 2015 and has been selling e-bikes with AEG drives since the 2017 model year. In 2018 the company celebrated its 110th anniversary with an exclusive Prophete-AEG anniversary model.

swell

  1. ↑ a b c Prophete GmbH & Co. KG; Rheda-Wiedenbrück; Annual financial statements as of September 30, 2018 , digital Federal Gazette , accessed on 2020-06-23.
  2. ^ Cycle Union GmbH; Oldenburg; Annual financial statements as of September 30, 2018 , digital Federal Gazette , accessed on 2020-06-23.
  3. ↑ a b c history / 2004. Prophete GmbH u. Co. KG, archived from the original on March 11, 2016 ; Retrieved December 11, 2011 .
  4. ↑ Brands. Cycle Union GmbH, accessed December 11, 2011 .
  5. ↑ 110 years anniversary - Prophets. Retrieved June 6, 2018 (German).
  6. ↑ www.genios.de/firmen/firma/CY/cycle-union-gmbh.html
  7. ↑ A new name for Rabeneick Nordwestzeitung Online from 2007-08-17. Retrieved on 2020-06-28.
  8. ↑ Prophete closes production in Rheda-Wiedenbrück . Newspaper article, Neue Westfälische , November 12, 2010.
  9. ↑ Sportgeraetetest.de, category prophets
  10. ↑ Report: Visiting Prophet. elektrorad-magazin.de, accessed on October 20, 2018 .
  11. ↑ The traditional manufacturer Prophete celebrates 110 years of existence. Velostrom online magazine, accessed on October 20, 2018 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 51 ′ 6 "  N , 8 ° 18 ′ 44"  E