Taiwan electric scooter firm Gogoro delays China expansion
TAIWANESE electric scooter maker Gogoro is delaying its expansion plans in China due to geopolitical and economic uncertainty there, and is putting more focus on India and Indonesia, its chief financial officer said Friday (Nov 11).
Beyond making its own vehicles, Gogoro has electric battery and other partnerships with vehicle makers, including India’s Hero MotoCorp, and China’s Dachangjiang Group and Yadea Group Holdings.
Known for its green-hued battery-swap distribution network for riders, Gogoro has ambitious plans. It sees potential to replace vast fleets of heavily-polluting, petrol-powered scooters with electric two-wheelers, as Asia’s metropolises make a bid to improve air quality.
Gogoro’s chief financial officer Bruce Aitken said while almost all the company’s revenue was currently generated in Taiwan, it is looking to diversify internationally, with the biggest market for two-wheelers being China, India and Indonesia.
But with China, “there are all the geopolitical issues, there are all the China macroeconomic issues”, he said. The country’s economy has slowed because of repeated lockdowns to control Covid-19, and Beijing is locked in trade and political disputes with Washington.
“There’s so much uncertainly, I think I would say, regarding the China market in general, that we’re delaying our expansion plans until we have a bit more certainty, and a bit more viability into what follows,” he added.
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“We’re taking an optimistic but cautionary kind of perspective regarding a further rollout in China, as a result of the current situation there.”
Gogoro is thus looking elsewhere, and for now, India and Indonesia are looking like appealing marketplaces, said Aitken.
But the company does not expect more significant international income until 2024 and beyond, he said.
In Taiwan, Gogoro has a partnership with Foxconn, a company best known for assembling Apple iPhones, and which harbours ambitions to enter the arena for electric vehicles (EVs).
Aitken said there was potential to do a lot more with Foxconn, whose EV plans do not presently include two-wheelers; it plans to focus instead on sedans, buses and trucks.
“We do not have aspirations right now, specifically, to get into the four-wheeled space ourselves, so there’s no competition there.” REUTERS
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