{"id":19930,"date":"2016-08-15T16:43:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T08:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/austcham.org\/?p=19930"},"modified":"2016-08-15T16:43:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T08:43:07","slug":"austcham-podcast-niu-on-building-a-premium-chinese-brand-with-global-characteristics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/?p=19930","title":{"rendered":"AustCham Podcast | Niu on building a premium Chinese brand with global characteristics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Niu<\/strong> <strong>have developed a booming premium e-scooter business from scratch in just two years<\/strong> &#8211; raising hundreds of millions of yuan through record breaking crowdfunding campaigns and becoming<em> the <\/em>brand for discerning Chinese millennials. <strong>AustCham&#8217;s Luke Pegrum<\/strong> and<strong> Santiago Mateos<\/strong> sat down with <strong>Niu&#8217;s Director of Overseas Business Casper Zhao<\/strong> to find out what foreign brands can learn from Niu&#8217;s sucess.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-19930-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/austcham.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Niu-Podcast.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/austcham.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Niu-Podcast.mp3\">http:\/\/austcham.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Niu-Podcast.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Niu don&#8217;t just make scooters, they aim to change the way urban people live and engage with the city &#8211; while doing their bit to save the environment.<\/p>\n<p>As they explain on their website:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;NIU was born at the intersection of technology and industrial design. Co-founder LI Yi Nan (former CTO of Baidu) and Token HU (formerly of frog Design and Microsoft) joined forces to create a vehicle that envisions a new way urbanites live, work, and socialize in their favorite cities around the world&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>They&#8217;ve since brought on board senior hires from some of China&#8217;s leading tech firms including Huawei and Xiaomi, as well as design talent from around the world.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015 they launched the N1 eScooter and in just 11 days raised $11,000,000 USD on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jd.com\/\">JD<\/a>&#8216;s Equity Crowdfunding platform &#8211; one of the top-ten crowdfunded campaigns of all-time globally.<\/p>\n<p>They launched their second model, the M1 eScooter in 2016, once again smashing crowdfunding records.<\/p>\n<p>Their successful crowdfunding campaigns and rapid growth &#8211; they now have over 400 employees and have six new bricks-and-mortar showrooms in the pipeline &#8211; stem from the company&#8217;s sage-like understanding of what drives Chinese young-professionals.<\/p>\n<p>Crucially though, Niu see themselves not as a Chinese brand, but an international one &#8211; and, as Casper explains, they have an ambitious plan to show the world what a premium Chinese brand looks like.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>To learn more about Niu, check out their <a href=\"http:\/\/niu.com\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-19934\" src=\"http:\/\/austcham.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-15-at-3.40.41-PM-copy.png\" alt=\"niu logo\" width=\"138\" height=\"57\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>And don\u2019t forget\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The AustCham Podcast is now available on iTunes! <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/austcham-podcast\/id1125332386?mt=2\">Visit the iTunes Store<\/a> or find us using the podcast app on your iPhone by searching AustCham Podcast.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to have the latest episodes delivered straight to your phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Niu have developed a booming premium e-scooter business from scratch in just two years &#8211; raising hundreds of millions of yuan through record breaking crowdfunding campaigns and becoming the brand &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,42,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-e-commerce","category-podcasts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}