The value of the global electric vehicle charging station market will grow from $17.6 billion in 2021 to $111.9 billion in 2028, which means an average annual growth rate of 30.3%, according to the latest Fortune Business Insights’ report. This is currently the fastest growing segment of the shared mobility industry, which creates great opportunities for potential investors, said Paulius Insoda, CEO at NFQ Technologies, an international IT company helping global brands to create innovation, which recently opened its Polish branch in Krakow.
Shared mobility includes transport solutions that let people cover short distances with light vehicles such as bicycles, scooters, or small cars. Existing sharing fleets count on millions of vehicles globally, the rental of which is possible from the level of the application installed on the smartphone. On average, over 30% of vehicles made available based on the shared mobility model are powered by electricity. If we add to this the constantly growing number of electric cars purchased by Poles, it is not surprising that the market of charging stations shows such high growth dynamics.
The number of electric vehicles is about to explode
According to the data from July 2022, a total of 52,881 electric cars were registered in Poland. During the first seven months of 2022, their number increased by 14,098, which means a 44% increase compared to the similar period in 2021. Currently, there are 2,293 publicly available charging stations for all of these cars, according to the Electromobility Meter, run by the Polish Automotive Industry Association and the Polish Alternative Fuels Association.
“The market is still in an early stage of development. Let's look at the state of California, which has a similar population to Poland, but is at a much more advanced stage as regards the use of electric cars and the development of related infrastructure. There are currently around 1.1 million electric cars registered there and around 80,000 public charging stations. And this is still far too little to meet the estimated needs of 1.2 million such stations by 2030. This shows the growth potential of the market, also in Poland,” said Paulius Insoda, CEO at NFQ.
Head of NFQ – a company that has in its portfolio two unicorns (KAYAK and HomeToGo) and several companies that aspire to this name, including in the area of shared mobility --- sees great potential for new investments in this industry. He also argues that the new solutions have huge opportunities to scale outside Poland because virtually every country is in a similar situation when it comes to developing solutions for charging electric vehicles.
"We are currently observing the first wave of consolidation in the electric vehicle charging market, an example of which is a recent acquisition of our PlugSurfing solution by Fleetcore Technologies. At the same time, however, there is still a huge space for innovative business models and solutions based on which charging stations can operate, including using the EV-Charging-as-a-Service model or V2G technology. We are also seeing more and more investments in charging stations by cities and large companies,” explained Paulius Insoda.
Lots of room for innovation in other segments of shared mobility as well
The representative of NFQ indicates that investors should also be interested in other segments of the shared mobility market, particularly in the area of Demand Responsive Transit (DRT) and micromobility. The latter segment attracted as much as $3 billion in investment from VC funds in 2019-2021, according to data from the ResearchAndMarkets’ raport.
DRT solutions are introduced by startups in cooperation with cities and they are very popular everywhere in the world. Their success is due to the fact that they respond to the challenges of modern cities, serve the public interest, and at the same time benefit consumers and the wider transport system. Similar assumptions also underpin the operation of micromobility services, which include networks of bicycles, scooters, and other light vehicles. However, the focus in this segment is now shifting toward commercial solutions
“This applies in particular to last-mile delivery solutions that can ensure the delivery of goods to the recipient using various means of transport, including drones. According to forecasts, this market may be worth up to $123 billion by 2030, growing by an average of 13.2% per year. We are also seeing a completely new wave of ideas for other solutions in the area of shared mobility, such as carsharing networks based on a fleet of vehicles from individual users, or going beyond transport, into areas such as property sharing. There are plenty of attractive investment opportunities,” said Paulius Insoda.
According to CEO at NFQ, the growth of the shared mobility industry is driven by the development of technology, which is followed by progress in such solutions as GPS, mobile payments in applications, greater battery efficiency, and the growing popularity of smartphones. The search for new ways of transport is also influenced by the growing number of city residents, who in Poland already account for 60% of the population.
"There are nearly 10 brands from the shared mobility market in our portfolio, including CityBee, Plugsurfing, Rebike Mobility, or SIXT. Most of NFQ’s clients are companies that come to us not for hours or lines of code, but for broad vision, experience, ideas and solutions, and only after that for execution. Additionally, we invest through NFQ group companies in some high-potential startups and grow them ourselves. This strategy helps us work more effectively and, most importantly, leads to greater satisfaction on the team,” said Paulius Insoda, CEO at NFQ.
