Taiwanese manufacturers get China boost, but not IT

While Katie Melua might have sung about the nine million bicycles that can be found in China’s capital city, she did not mention anything about the rate of import. Right now, Taiwanese IT manufacturers are looking over at their cycle-making cousins with an unhealthy shade of jealousy. KitGuru dons the cycle clips and heads into town.

Merida, Giant and Ideal are the biggest bike makes in Taiwan and, this year, they are all setting their sales predictions sky high for the Chinese mainland market.

Giant alone is looking to sell at least 2 million cycles, while Ideal and Merida are also looking at 7-figure predictions.

At the same time, Ideal Bikes will launch an expansion programme that will see its mainland China stores increase from 60 to more than 100.

OK, the site’s called ‘KitGuru’ and not ‘CycleGuru’, so what gives?

Simple, these expansions are all set to continue. Right now, it’s personal transport, but pretty soon it will be personal computing and a whole heap of other goods. China is, without doubt, the world’s factory right now, but – in a small number of years – it will almost certainly become the world’s customer. We can think of at least one world leader who’s smart enough to see this – and who’s already contemplating life ‘not in the top spot’.

KitGuru says: Following closely in behind China is India. We’ll be bringing you more about the expansions that these new markets are undergoing over the next few weeks – specifically the IT-related changes we’re expecting in the next 5 years.

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