Kwang Yang Motor Co (光陽工業), which sells electric scooters under the brand Ionex, yesterday said its first made-in-Thailand electric scooters would be available in Bangkok in the first half of next year.
The company also established a joint venture, Aionex Co, with PTT Public Co to create a scooter ecosystem in Thailand, it said.
“In Taiwan, Kwang Yang produces electric scooters, and deploys and operates a battery swapping system by its own,” Kwang Yang chairman Allen Ko (柯勝峯) told reporters. “But beyond Taiwan, it is not feasible to do it all by yourself as every part of the supply chain will require huge investments.”
Photo: Amy Yang, Taipei Times
In Thailand, the company is considering building its own electric scooter production line, or outsourcing the production to local partners, Ko said.
The Thai investment is part of the company’s three-to-five-year goal to expand its footprint in the Southeast Asian market, and Ko said Kwang Yang is looking to Vietnam and Indonesia for future expansions.
The company has received numerous inquiries for potential collaborations from Northeast Asia, India and the US, following the announcement of its partnerships with PTT, he said.
“As compared with India, we believe the Southeast Asian market will be easier to begin with. India is a much more complicated market than most people thought,” Ko said.
The Kaohsiung-based company hopes to see initial results of its overseas expansion within the next three to five years, he said.
Despite rising competition from existing fuel-powered scooter brands from Japan, the company said it is ahead of its rivals by three to five years in terms of technology.
On its home turf, Kwang Yang targets to recoup its top position in the fuel-powered scooter segment next year. The company, which sells its fuel-powered scooters under the KYMCO brand, lost the No. 1 spot last year for the first time in 22 years.
The company, which last month slashed the price of a popular model, GP125, to NT$39,800 from NT$57,000, yesterday announced the extension of the special offer to Sept. 20 as the strategy turned out to be very successful. The company has received 40,000 orders in just a month, which has never been seen in the history of Taiwan’s scooter industry, Ko said.
The company said it was unable to fully satisfy consumer demand as the orders received have greatly surpassed its capacity of 10,000 PG 125 scooters a month.
“We expect the backlog orders to be fully digested in October or November,” Ko said.
The promotion campaign helped boost Kwang Yang’s fuel-powered scooter sales last month to 26,014 units, up 60 percent from a year ago, and lifted the company’s market share to top 30.6 percent, the best since April last year, according to market researcher U-Car’s statistics.
Sanyang Motor Co Ltd (三陽工業) safeguarded its No. 1 position last month with sales of 33,443 units, capturing 39.3 percent in market share, according to U-Car.
PATENTS: MediaTek Inc said it would not comment on ongoing legal cases, but does not expect the legal action by Huawei to affect its business operations Smartphone integrated chips designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Friday said that a lawsuit filed by Chinese smartphone brand Huawei Technologies Co (華為) over alleged patent infringements would have little impact on its operations. In an announcement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, MediaTek said that it would not comment on an ongoing legal case. However, the company said that Huawei’s legal action would have little impact on its operations. MediaTek’s statement came after China-based PRIP Research said on Thursday that Huawei filed a lawsuit with a Chinese district court claiming that MediaTek infringed on its patents. The infringement mentioned in the lawsuit likely involved
Taipei is today suspending work, classes and its US$2.4 trillion stock market as Typhoon Gaemi approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Authorities had yesterday issued a warning that the storm could affect people on land and canceled some ship crossings and domestic flights. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) expects its local chipmaking fabs to maintain normal production, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp said it has activated routine typhoon alert
GROWTH: TSMC increased its projected revenue growth for this year to more than 25 percent, citing stronger-than-expected demand for AI devices and smartphones The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday raised its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year from 3.29 percent to 3.85 percent, as exports and private investment recovered faster than it predicted three months ago. The Taipei-based think tank also expects that Taiwan would see a 8.19 percent increase in exports this year, better than the 7.55 percent it projected in April, as US technology giants spent more money on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and development. “There will be more AI servers going forward, but it remains to be seen if the momentum would extend to personal computers, smartphones and
Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts said on Friday. A flawed update sent out by the little-known security firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc brought airlines, TV stations and myriad other aspects of daily life to a standstill. The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Inc’s Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “blue screen of death.” “Today CrowdStrike has become a household name, but not in