Kwang Yang Motor Co (光陽工業), which has been selling gasoline-powered scooters for more than half a century under the name KYMCO, is reshaping its brand image by adopting a second brand name, Ionex, for its electric scooter business as it moves to challenge market leader Gogoro Inc (睿能創意).
Kwang Yang sait it wanted to change consumers’ mindset about the company by creating an independent sales team to sell its electric two-wheelers. Ionex Taiwan Co (台灣光捷), a fully owned subsidiary, is tasked with crafting a new marketing strategy and building additional sales channels.
Kwang Yang in December 2019 boosted the paid-in capital of Ionex to NT$300 million (US$10.51 million) from NT$15 million, Ministry of Economic Affairs data showed.
Photo: Yang Ya-min, Taipei Times
Prior to this year, Kwang Yang’s electric scooters were sold at its existing sales outlets, alongside its gasoline-powered scooters, since their debut three years ago.
“We have to compete with a strong rival in the home market. Kwang Yang has long been the nation’s biggest maker of gasoline-powered scooters. That brand image is deeply rooted in local consumers’ mind,” Kwang Yang chairman Allen Ko (柯勝峰) said in an interview with a small group of reporters on Wednesday last week.
Gogoro holds 77 percent of the domestic electric scooter market, while Kwang Yang only has 4 percent, according to the Industrial Development Bureau’s tallies.
As of Thursday, Gogoro had sold 345,190 electric vehicles versus Kwang Yang’s 19,215.
“To catch the consumer’s eye, we have to adopt a new brand and forgo KYMCO,” Ko said. “You will not see KYMCO in our electric scooter commercials anymore.”
The company has replaced the KYMCO label with Ionex for its new electric scooters, he said.
Kwang Yang plans to open 11 dedicated stores for its electric scooters, called Ionex stores, within one month and aims to more than quadruple that to 50 by the end of this year.
However, Kwang Yang is not ready for a spin-off at this time, Ko said.
Electric scooters and gasoline-powered scooters are developed and manufactured in the same factories to maintain cost-efficiency, Ko said.
The Ionex brand will only be adopted for the local brand, as its KYMCO brand is better known in global markets, Ko said.
Kwang Yang offers electric scooters to GrabWheels, an electric scooter sharing service arm of Grab Holdings Inc, in Indonesia, he said.
Battery supply is as important, if Kwang Yang wants to become a key player, Ko said.
This was Kwang Yang’s weakness, as the company had previously rolled out scooters that riders could only charge at home or at charging stations, he said.
Kwang Yang plans to build 1,500 battery swap stations by the end of this year and to increase the number to 4,000 by the end of next year.
It is forming partnerships with Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), President Chain Store Corp (統一超商), Fubon Insurance Co (富邦產險) and Carrefour Taiwan (家樂福) to install battery swap stations, it said.
To speed up deployment, Kwang Yang is considering signing up electric scooter riders who have space that can be turned into a small-scale battery swap station, he said.
He attributed a short supply of fully charged batteries to a slump in domestic electric scooter sales last year, in addition to adjustments in purchase subsidies from the government.
To ensure sufficient battery supply, Kwang Yang said it is taking a different approach from its major rival.
The company will suspend sales of electric scooters if its pace of battery swap deployment cannot keep up with the pace of its sales growth, Ko said.
It also offers riders two types of batteries — for charging or swapping.
Gogoro riders can only swap batteries with fully-charged ones at battery swap stations, which requires an intensive network.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS