{"text":[[{"start":8.23,"text":"This article only represents the author's own views."}],[{"start":12.46,"text":"In 2003, Shenzhen announced a ban on motorcycles to stop a crime wave of motorcycle-riding bandits. Three brothers, Sun Muqian, Sun Muchu, and Sun Muchai, together with partner Yao Li, were running a motorcycle repair shop in their hometown of Chaoshan at that time and saw an opportunity. They rented a small factory in Longgang, in the northeastern part of Shenzhen, and started making electric bicycles by hand, exploiting a loophole in the motorcycle ban."}],[{"start":44.59,"text":"Fast forward to the present, and the business they started, TAILG Technology Co. Ltd., is now China’s third largest electric micromobility vehicle maker. It moved its headquarters from Shenzhen to Wuxi, about an hour by train from Shanghai, between 2007 and 2009, to better position itself geographically to build a national footprint."}],[{"start":69.22,"text":"Now, TAILG is about to take its show on the road one more time, this time to Hong Kong for a planned IPO, according to its listing application filed last week. The listing would make TAILG China’s fourth e-scooter maker to go public, after Yadea (1585.HK), AIMA Technology (603529.SH) and Niu Technologies (NIU.US). Yadea was the leader with 26.8% of the domestic market in 2024, while AIMA was second with 17.9%. TAILG’s 12.7% made it China’s third largest brand, followed by Niu at 7.1%, according to TAILG’s prospectus. Ninebot (68909.SH), owner of the Segway brand, is also a competitor."}],[{"start":119.61,"text":"TAILG’s listing is being charged up by some big names, including Citic Securities and China Merchants Securities as its underwriters. Its investors include car giant SAIC, and a somewhat unlikely backer in luxury leader LVMH, whose participation comes through its L Catterton Asia Advisors joint venture. While scooters are hardly a luxury item, LVMH has a little experience in the space through a 2020 collaboration by its Dior brand with Italy’s Piaggio (PIA.MI) to create a limited-edition Vespa 946 Christian Dior scooter."}],[{"start":158.25,"text":"Companies like TAILG have transformed China into both the world’s largest producer and consumer of micromobility vehicles, or e-scooters, with sales of 32.3 million units in the first half of 2025, up 29.5% year over year, according to market consultancy Equal Ocean."}],[{"start":181.39,"text":"Its most recent fundraising, which came just last month, valued TAILG at 9.46 billion yuan ($1.36 billion), meaning a sale of a quarter of its shares could raise as much as $340 million."}],[{"start":199.73,"text":"In terms of sales and profits, TAILG’s growth has been accelerating over the last two years. After rising 14.5% in 2024, its revenue growth rate more than doubled to 38.6% in the first nine months of 2025 to reach 14.84 billion yuan. Its unit sales growth sped up from 8% in 2024 to 28% in the first nine months of 2025, when the figure reached 7.8 million units."}],[{"start":234.02999999999997,"text":"Its overall gross margin stood at 14.6% in the first nine months of last year, trailing Niu’s 19% and 16.5% for Yadea. TAILG’s figure is dragged down by extremely low margins for batteries that account for about a fifth of its sales. Excluding batteries, its margins are closer to its rivals. Like its revenue, TAILG’s profit growth also accelerated from 65% in 2024 to 122% in the first nine months of last year, when it reached 823 million yuan."}],[{"start":270.63,"text":"Overseas drive"}],[{"start":272.77,"text":"In a saturated domestic market where one in every four people owns an electric two-wheeler, the motivation for TAILG and its peers to go global is obvious. Adding to the pressure, especially for smaller players with less resources, are new national safety standards for electric bicycles that took effect last December."}],[{"start":295.31,"text":"The new rules include stronger fire-resistance requirements for non-metallic materials, tighter controls on the proportion of plastic parts, better braking systems, anti-tampering measures to prevent illegal modifications, and a higher weight limit for lead-acid battery models."}],[{"start":311.85,"text":"The regulatory change could be punishing for TAILG, since electric bicycles accounted for 56.3% of its revenues in the first nine months of 2025. Electric motorcycles made up 19.6%, while batteries made up about 20%. The company’s product line includes 50 electric bicycles and 38 electric motorcycles, sold via 5,597 distributors and over 27,000 retail stores."}],[{"start":343.48,"text":"Like its competitors, TAILG is looking abroad for future growth. Its only overseas factory is currently in Vietnam, with annual capacity of 100,000 units, though current production is less than half of that at 40,000 units. But it has big hopes for the global market, with plans to build another factory nearby with annual capacity of 900,000 units."}],[{"start":366.68,"text":"The company also uses third-party manufacturers in Indonesia “as a supplement to our manufacturing capacity, allowing us to enjoy quick response to demands from relevant overseas markets for our products in a cost-efficient way,” according to the prospectus. TAILG’s website says it exports to over 90 countries and regions, and the prospectus says it sells overseas through 412 distributors and over 300 outlets."}],[{"start":394.87,"text":"But its revenue from overseas markets is still quite small, accounting for just 2.7% of its total in the first nine months of last year. That puts the company well behind market leader Yadea, which opened factories in Thailand and Mexico in 2025 and was set to open a new factory in Vietnam last month."}],[{"start":417.2,"text":"By the end of 2025, Yadea had over 1,000 branded stores internationally, according to its website. But even Yadea’s progress overseas is limited, with its latest financial report showing it still gets more than 90% of its sales from China. Niu’s situation is similar despite efforts to build up its overseas business. That shows that going global may be easier said than done for electric scooter makers, probably due to different regulations in each market and challenges of building up local sales and after-sales networks."}],[{"start":455.94,"text":"TAILG’s forecast profit for last year and its most recent valuation would give it a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 8.6, trailing the 15.6 for Yadea, the 10.9 for AIMA and also well behind the 16.5 for Piaggio, owner of the Vespa brand. Its lower margins could be partly to blame for holding it back, but it seems likely to get a higher multiple if and when it rides on to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange."}],[{"start":490.74,"text":"TAILG may also have some tricks up its sleeves in terms of product innovation. Much of co-founder and chief R&D engineer Sun Muchu’s focus has been on product design and software, including a “Tai-Link” intelligent rider management platform connecting users, vehicles and data. If the IPO goes well, Sun and his brothers could use their IPO proceeds on more similar innovations to soup up a company that, like Microsoft and Apple, began in a garage."}],[{"start":533.27,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1770368765_4790.mp3"}