Anywhere in the world, when local entrepreneurs plan to go electric, the default option seems to be “source from China.” The Chinese factories are solution providers for anyone looking at white-labeling options. And that created an image for anyone coming from China. It was never about the brand and always about the factory and the price per container.
Niu came in and changed that. We count them brave because they appeared in 2016 when electric two-wheeled mobility was just emerging. Here was a Chinese manufacturer that wanted to be as un-Chinese as possible.
For this week’s interview, we rang up Sieghart Michielsen, Director of International at Niu Technologies, to understand why the international markets hold a special place for Niu and where the brand goes from here.
I first found Niu many years back. I think it was 2019, and even then, it was perhaps the best-known e-moped brand in Europe. When you go back in history, what did Niu do to position itself like that? How did you work on that acceptance, and the widespread popularity that you have in the European market?
Our first steps into Europe were actually at the end of 2016, which was quite early, especially considering that we had only established in China in 2014 and started selling there in 2015. So, just one year after we began, we were already moving into Europe. We arrived shortly after that first wave of low-cost Chinese imports, at a time when customers were still hesitant about anything electric made in China.
Our strategy in Europe was to build trust by setting up a very traditional business structure, working with reputable importers in each country. Even though our products are forward-thinking, full of design and technology, our business model emphasizes reliability and partnerships with trusted local players. We also partnered with well-known suppliers like Bosch for motors and Panasonic for batteries, and we made sure to highlight those connections. This approach helped us establish credibility and win over the market.
I think one of our advantages was arriving early, before many of the larger Chinese competitors like Yadea. We focused on building trust first, and that paved the way for us in the sector.
I think you highlighted a very important part that building trust is very important for the customer. I’ve seen that Niu worked very hard in building the trust of the customers, and part of the journey was incorporating elements like the motor, which came from Bosch, and the cells, which came from Panasonic, and so on. You also had these elements in your communication. Do you feel that, five years back, you needed the support of these brands, but today you are strong enough that you can do without the association and say that it’s just Niu, and that’s enough for the customer?
Yes and no. It really depends on the market. Take lithium batteries, for example: the public’s understanding of the industry has changed dramatically in recent years. People now recognize that China is ahead in lithium cell development. While Panasonic still adds value for some customers, most now accept Chinese battery makers as leaders. Today, our batteries come mainly from CATL, Ampace, and other domestic Chinese manufacturers, though we still have Panasonic in the lineup. Thanks to the car industry, European customers have learned that Chinese suppliers are at the forefront of this technology.
So, brand associations are less important today than they were back in 2016–17 when we entered the market.
That’s a very good perspective, especially on the battery side. The opinion that the European customer has today is that China is a high-technology base for Li-ion batteries, and you don’t necessarily need to have a brand association to stress that the battery is high-technology. On the other hand, one of the other images of China is that there is a lot of IP sharing happening. When I say IP sharing, it’s mostly that if someone has a successful product, the other factories in China try to copy that, and then you get a lot of similar-looking scooters. Niu has a very distinct-looking scooter range. You have a headlamp that is very easily recognizable, and that’s your signature. Yet, you have very successfully maintained that identity and defended that, and it’s difficult to find copies today. How have you done that? What did you do differently?
(laughs) I’ve seen some very convincing copies. But design and technology are at the core of our company, so protecting our design language has always been a priority. We’ve filed hundreds of IPs, and we actively pursue infringements to protect them. Of course, there have been cases where our designs were copied.
We also put effort into naming our brand and products in ways that can be trademarked internationally. From the beginning, we took an international approach, ensuring consistency in naming structures and branding. Protecting the design and identity of our vehicles has always been central to what we do.
When I first looked at Niu about five years back, it was a very popular brand with the fleet operators who were creating ride-sharing e-moped fleets in Europe. Is that still your primary target customer, or has that changed? Is there more interest in new scooters now on the retail side?
So the shared e-mopeds are still quite an important part of our B2B customer base, but even at their peak, it was never really a large part, like not much more than 20% of our international business.
It’s the retail, like the end customer, that has always been the larger share of our business in Europe and other international markets. We had started in 2018 while ride-sharing peaked in 2019-20. At the top, the ride-sharing industry had about 120,000 vehicles in operation. Today, about 20% of that is left. They are doing well, the ones that survived, post the consolidation and shakeout. But I think this whole industry has a bit of an issue that in 2019-20, they were funded like software companies, which they are not. So you know the whole story, right? Not many of them survived, but the ones that still do, mostly in very moped countries like the Netherlands, they’re doing well. They’re still using our hardware, and we still support them, and we have them as customers. But it’s not like a segment that we see much growth in for the next couple of years.
So B2B is an interesting additional segment for us, but not the main segment for our European operations. Our main segment still is the very traditional customer’s normal purchase of scooters. It’s still making about 80% of our business.
For a long time, Niu has had these three major product lines: the NQi. the MQi, and the UQi. In recent quarters, I have seen the portfolio expanding fast with new product lines being added. There’s a much greater variety and many more offerings. Was there a cultural shift in Niu? What made you decide on this fast product development cycle that needs to happen for your global expansion?
I wouldn’t say there’s been a major acceleration in the past three years. We’ve definitely moved into more segments, but that process started earlier. For example, we entered the kick-scooter market in 2021 and the off-road segment with the XQi last year. We also teased a four-wheel ATV at EICMA in Milan, though we haven’t launched it yet. In mopeds, our portfolio now includes the NQi-series, MQi-series, UQi-series, FQi-series, and the RQi-series motorcycles. There’s been a lot of development, but not necessarily faster—maybe it just feels that way.
Much of our development starts from a base model in the Chinese market, where we recently repositioned toward the premium segment. That shift gives us stronger products to adapt internationally. For example, the NQiX series in Europe is based on a highly successful domestic Chinese model.
My perspective came from the NQiX series because Niu has suddenly created a scooter more exciting than ever before. Earlier, your range used to top out at the NQI GT, but now you have the NQX, much more powerful and faster, and a sharper-looking product. That makes the entire range look exciting, really. Is it right to say that there is a time-lag between when you introduce a product in China and when you bring it to Europe? There are some products, like the SQi e-bike, that are yet to come to Europe.
Yes, there’s definitely a time lag, but the lag is not caused by the fact that we prep the paperwork for a vehicle to be sold outside China. We really look at any vehicle as a base, and then we build it purposely with features it needs to have for the market we want to launch it in. Therefore, it’s not just about getting the paperwork ready, but it’s really about absorbing the learnings from the domestic product launch, quality control, road testing, etc.
Obviously, there is the kind of translation of the domestic model into an international version, and that can change product specifications and even impact design elements as well. Then, there are the technical delays of homologation in the international markets. Add to that the scaling up in mass production and the shipping, which has not been getting any faster in recent years.
That means the time for adjustment, the time for homologation, and for getting it into dealerships in Europe all add up to the lag that you see.
I always look at Niu as a super success story in Europe, coming from China, but there are now bigger, though not that well-known, manufacturers from China, like Yadea, coming to Europe. Does it create a more difficult position going forward, where the competition is going to go bigger in a market that is still very fragmented(Europe)?
I think that’s a very interesting question, and I want to say a couple of things on that. On one hand, we saw that when we entered in 2016, there was almost no competition. When this started to change, we had two types of competitors. First, other Chinese OEMs are trying to make it overseas. Second, there was also this wave of local European startups that were challenging the industry.
Because of the difficult situation in the market, both in the two-wheeler market as well as the two-wheeler EV market in Europe, there was a rapid rise, and then stagnation. We’ve seen many startups fail; unfortunately, we’ve also seen many OEMs from China give up because it wasn’t going fast enough. So, at the beginning of 2025, I had a sense of a flashback to 2020, when there was much less competition. This first wave of competitors many of them have, for several reasons, given up. But for sure, strong players like Yadea, the world’s largest electric two-wheel manufacturer right now, will sustain. Obviously, they have lots of strength that can hurt much smaller companies like us. But I also think that we have one big advantage over a company like Yadea, and that is our size. We do have a decent-sized business in China, but not as big as Yadea. For that reason, for Yadea, anything that is outside of their home market is kind of a distraction from the big things going on in China.
For us, our Chinese market is and will remain a very important part of our business. But any substantial growth in Europe right now would give us a good business case for our size. So, we actually have more skin in the game in Europe. We are more wanting to be successful in Europe, because that not just about being nice on my business card or nice on the company’s business card, but it will actually bring valuable addition to the business.
That’s a very interesting perspective. I never thought of it this way that Europe is more important for someone the size of Niu than it is for Yadea. On the topic of competition, Honda has started rolling out its electric product portfolio. I think they rolled out a couple of products in Europe as well. Is that a bigger challenge for you, or do you rate the challenge from homegrown Chinese companies as bigger?
For sure, the traditional ICE players are in a position to hurt us more in the short term because of their established presence in Europe. We see that already, even though all these years, their current product offerings are (without being rude) kind of substandard to what is expected to be the standard of an electric 50cc or 125cc equivalent these days. So, from specifications, price, range, etc, it’s not something to be very impressed by.
But obviously, when they introduce these models, their presence, their dealer network, aftermarket, and after-sales setup, things that they have been building for 20-30 years, have a lot of value, and that gives them a head start when introducing these new models in their network. They can be very fast and efficient.
The first nine months of 2025 seem to have been good for Niu. How do you interpret that?
The results for this year for our two-wheeler market have been quite good. Over the last 24 months, we’ve been going through a lot of changes because at the beginning of 2024, we moved away from one of our importer distributors in 2023, and moved to direct distribution in Italy, Germany, and France. This means we are still selling normally through dealers, but now import vehicles ourselves. I think this also shows the difference between Niu and the competition because we want to do the most important parts of the business ourselves. We want to sell 50,000 units a year in Europe someday, and we know that it takes time to build this as a base. We need to get everyone on board, and need to have a local setup, like local warehouses, local after-sales support, etc. This is something that we understood from the start, that it’s not an easy market. Electrification is not easy, not like a hockey stick curve as everyone expected. But, in the end, that’s the market, and we see that obviously, electrification is what would be, eventually. In the long term, 100% of this market will be only E2Ws. So, I think what we know and what we understand needs some time, but the one who’s there first and in the right way will be part of the winners. So that’s why we really believe in this market.
