Yan Li, CEO of NIU Technologies speaks during Day 2 of CNBC East Tech West at LN Garden Hotel Nansha Guangzhou on November 18, 2020 in Nansha, Guangzhou, China.
Zhong Zhi | Getty Images | CNBC International
GUANGZHOU, China — Shares of Chinese electric scooter firm Niu Technologies surged nearly 16% on Thursday after the company reported a jump in sales of its products.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, Niu sold 149,705 e-scooters, growing 40.9% year-on-year.
In China, Niu sold 137,586 e-scooters, accounting for 91% of total sales. China sales jumped 35% year-on-year.
Niu sold 12,119 e-scooters in international markets in the fourth quarter, up 179.6% compared with the same period in 2019.
“Seeing quite a bit of demand for our new products and that drives the continued growth in China,” Yan Li, CEO of Niu Technologies, told CNBC by phone.
“For the international market, we are actually seeing despite the Covid-19 situation, we are actually seeing a nice rebound as more and more people … really geared for … individual mobility solutions. We are seeing increasing orders from Europe,” he said.
Last year, Niu pushed aggressively to open new stores in Europe to expand distribution. In China, it launched a new e-bicycle called the MQi2 and an entry level e-bike called the G0.
Niu said the total units of G0 sold during the fourth quarter represents approximately 21.5% of total China market volume, which could hurt its financials for the December quarter.
“The G0 model has lower sales price and gross margin compared with the existing models, and high proportion of sales volume from this model has negative impacts on the blended revenues per scooter and overall gross margin for the fourth quarter,” Niu said in a statement.
