Annual sales of 5 billion yuan, Li Shufu picks up motorcycles again

Ask AI · How did Li Shufu help Qianjiang Motor revive after a decade?

Reporter | Qin Yi | Yang Song | Editor | Tan Lu

An established old motorbike manufacturer in Zhejiang chooses to fight back.

On May 8, Qianjiang Motor issued a statement, saying it has never, in any form, targeted Zhang Xue Motorcycles, nor has it engaged in unfair competitive conduct such as supply-chain blockades or dealer encirclement.

In late April, rumors circulated that multiple motorcycle giants issued “banning orders” to suppliers and forced dealers into “choose one of two” arrangements, aiming to hinder Zhang Xue Motorcycles.

In response, Qianjiang Motor clearly denied these allegations. The statement said that it was “genuinely proud and honored” of Zhang Xue’s outstanding achievements, and praised it as “the shared glory of all Chinese motorcycle manufacturing companies.”

Qianjiang, which has been dragged into the dispute, has a close relationship with Li Shufu.

Ten years ago, he invested in Qianjiang Motor. By the end of 2025, through Geely Technology Group, he holds 30.77% equity, making him the controlling person.

Currently, Qianjiang sells motorbikes and other vehicles worth about 5 billion yuan per year. It exports more than 50,000 large-displacement models, and has also become an important force in China’s high-end motorcycle exports.

The large-displacement trend

Qianjiang Motor’s headquarters is located in Taizhou, Zhejiang—Li Shufu’s hometown.

Its chairman, Xu Zhihao, is also the CEO of Geely Technology Group, and the three directors including Director Yang Jian are also from the Geely ecosystem.

This old player, with a market value of about 7 billion yuan, has been rooted in the motorcycle industry for more than 40 years, and it adjusted its approach early.

Before 2010, it defined motorcycles as “a tool for making a living,” usually used for hauling goods and commuting. After 2010, it shifted the core attribute of motorcycles to “toys,” and demand for models with large displacement, high performance, strong design sense, and high emotional value surged.

In 2005, Li Shufu and his team acquired Italy’s century-old brand Benelli and obtained the core technology for large-displacement engines, accelerating its entry into the large-displacement sports and entertainment motorcycle segment.

Today, Qianjiang Motor has three major core brands: Benelli (Benelli), QJMOTOR, and Qianjiang, covering fuel motorcycles, electric bicycles, and electric motorcycles across 50cc–1200cc.

Among them, Benelli focuses on the high-end large-displacement racing segment. QJMOTOR is an indigenous “Guochao” (China-trend) brand it built on its own, targeting young domestic consumers and covering all displacements and all categories. Qianjiang focuses on practical commuting models and mainly targets lower-tier markets.

Qianjiang Motor’s large-displacement models above 250cc rank among the top in domestic market share, becoming a core business.

At present, competition in China’s large-displacement market is fierce between foreign-funded and domestic high-end manufacturers. The top 10 companies capture 90% of the market, and Li Shufu’s team has also taken a place in it.

In 2025, its large-displacement models sold 115,800 units. In total sales of all models, this accounted for more than 30%.

The official website shows that the average price of its large-displacement models ranges from 30,000 to 80,000 yuan. For example, the entry-level large-displacement model, the Flash 250 AMT, is priced at about 21,000 yuan. The mid-range model, the Sai 800RS, is around 50,000 yuan. The flagship sport-replica model, the Sai 921PRO, is priced at 71.9 thousand yuan.

Compared with imported brands such as Kawasaki and Honda, if the displacement and configuration are similar, Qianjiang Motor’s prices are usually 30%-50% lower.

Its core advantage lies in having already implemented an integrated “R&D, production, sales, and service” end-to-end industry-chain layout. It has built a global R&D system with coordinated operation across five locations: Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Italy. Its sales network covers more than 150 countries and regions worldwide.

From the inside out

Cool tracks, brutal games.

Li Shufu’s motorcycle business is facing a major shift in its environment: domestic sales are declining, and there are signs of an emerging price war.

In 2025, its net profit on the books reached 977 million yuan, while non-recurring profit was only 285 million yuan, down 49.2%, indicating pressure on profit from its main business. Specifically, its domestic sales volume of large-displacement products was 64,500 units, down 26% year-on-year.

The profit engine of this motorcycle giant has quietly shifted overseas.

In 2025, exports were 51,300 units, up 23.36% year-on-year. Export revenue of 2.9 billion yuan accounted for 53.68% of total revenue; and its gross margin at around 30% is higher than the level inside the domestic market.

In recent years, Qianjiang Motor has gone abroad with big strides, and internationalization has been upgraded to its “top strategic priority.”

Overseas, it has promoted a strategy of “multi-brand operations + cooperation with key distributors,” and has already established manufacturing, marketing, and service teams in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Large-displacement motorcycles have become the main focus of going overseas.

In 2025, the Xu Zhihao team revealed that its large-displacement products were exported at 39,600 units, bringing Qianjiang Motor’s total export value to the fifth place within China’s motorcycle industry.

Management emphasized that in 2026 it will improve its product layout, deepen existing markets, and launch products based on the demands of different markets.

For example, for the European market, it launched large-displacement models that meet local emission standards; for the Southeast Asian market, it launched small-displacement models with advantages in value for money.

Overall, Qianjiang Motor maintains fairly solid profitability—its gross margin has remained stable at 25% or above, even higher than Geely Automobile.

But in the first three months, demand for motorcycles cooled and sales fell. Combined with exchange-translation losses and other factors, the company temporarily found itself in the red.

“For 2026, achieving year-on-year growth in core operating indicators such as operating revenue and sales… expanding overseas market share, and seeing breakthrough growth in growth-oriented businesses.” Regarding its 2026 business goals, the Xu Zhihao team has already set the tone.

Strong kinship, shared roots

Li Shufu personally takes great care of the motorcycle business.

Motorcycles are an important part of his entrepreneurial journey. Geely also became the first private enterprise to research and manufacture motorcycles. However, as disorderly competition emerged later, he chose to withdraw proactively.

As early as 2016, Qianjiang Motor suffered consecutive losses and faced the risk of delisting. He stepped in with an investment of 1.08 billion yuan, obtaining 29.77% equity.

After that, a large group of experienced Geely executives joined Qianjiang Motor, bringing mature quality management models to the production lines.

Geely also introduced international cooperation partners. In 2019, Qianjiang reached a strategic cooperation with American motorcycle company Harley-Davidson, and together they promoted the motorcycle business.

Geely Automobile’s experience in intelligentization was also brought in.

In 2024, Qianjiang Motor launched the ParaPal (Parapal) exuberant intelligent architecture, introducing AI voice interaction to enable functions such as voice recognition, human-machine collaboration, and AI navigation.

Among Li Shufu’s plans for Geely Technology, Qianjiang Motor is one of its three major on-the-ground industrial businesses.

In areas such as supply-chain procurement, Qianjiang also has coordination advantages, with frequent business dealings.

For example, when Geely Technology held its supply-chain conference, Qianjiang Motor and sister companies such as Wofei Changkong participated together.

In 2025, the total amount of related-party transactions with the Geely system reached 83.29 million yuan. Among them, Guangqianli Technology alone purchased 29.57 million yuan worth of products from Qianjiang Motor.

Qianjiang Motor’s new product, the “all-terrain vehicle,” also leveraged the shareholders’ technical know-how and industrial-chain advantages in the automotive field. Sales of all-terrain vehicles have already exceeded 6,000 units per year, more than doubling year-on-year.

In recent years, the Xu Zhihao team has reconstructed the “car sales” business into an “riding lifestyle” ecosystem through “racing and travel linkage” and social media operations—using it to build momentum for its technology and brand.

With top-tier events such as WSBK and Moto2, Qianjiang Motor has validated its products in real combat, then used the results to feed back into product iteration. It has also built motorcycle rider communities, incubated owner KOCs, and carried out various training camps and experience events to create a “sense of community belonging.”

At present, the domestic market is relatively sluggish and the difficulty of overseas offensives is increasing. Li Shufu’s motorcycle business does face pressure in the short term.

Even so, the massive traffic generated by Zhang Xue Motorcycles has greatly boosted industry awareness, which is undoubtedly good news for domestic manufacturers including Qianjiang Motor.

Image source: Qianjiang Motor; unless otherwise noted