A 53-year-old female entrepreneur in Zhejiang who sells off-road motorcycles generates an annual revenue of 588 million yuan and is sprinting for an IPO.

Zhang Xue's former employer is one step closer to going public.

A few days ago, Zhejiang Apollo, a motorcycle manufacturing enterprise, passed the listing guidance and acceptance of the Beijing Stock Exchange.

Zhang Xue, the founder of Zhang Xue Motorcycle, worked at Zhejiang Apollo from 2009 to 2012.

In the past month, both Zhang Xue and her former employer have achieved great results: Zhang Xue Motorcycle received an investment of 150 million yuan from HSG, with a post-investment valuation of 6 billion yuan; 23 years after its founding, the former employer has also arrived at the threshold of the capital market.

It seems that the motorcycle business is about to heat up.

But Wang Xi, the former founder of Motobang, told Pencil News that this industry "makes no money at all", he smiled bitterly and said he even devoted his youth to it.

In the motorcycle industry, who on earth is making money?

- 01 - Selling off-road motorcycles, earning 67 million yuan

Let's start with Zhejiang Apollo.

Zhejiang Apollo is located in Wuyi, a county under the jurisdiction of Jinhua, and mainly produces off-road motorcycles. Its buyers are mostly motorcycle enthusiasts or professional riders, and you can hardly see its products on the street.

The founder of Zhejiang Apollo is a woman named Ying Er, who was born in 1973 and founded Zhejiang Apollo in 2003. She holds 57% of the shares in the company, and her husband Xu Kai holds 38%. The couple directly hold a total of 95% of the equity of Zhejiang Apollo.

In recent years, Zhejiang Apollo has had a good business performance.

In 2025, Zhejiang Apollo achieved a revenue of 588 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 52.49%; the net profit attributable to shareholders was 67.02 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 55.21%, with a net profit margin of about 11.4%. From January to June 2026, the revenue was 307 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.75%; the net profit attributable to shareholders was 27.0399 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.12%.

Nearly all products of Zhejiang Apollo are for export, and it has long participated in the global competition of off-road motorcycle manufacturers. About 1.5 million off-road motorcycles are sold globally every year, with consumption concentrated mainly in Europe and the United States, and Zhejiang Apollo accounts for 1.68% of the global market share.

Looking at the product structure of Zhejiang Apollo, it is very different from traditional off-road motorcycle manufacturers.

What makes the most money for Zhejiang Apollo now is not traditional fuel off-road motorcycles, but electric two-wheelers, which generates 277 million yuan in revenue a year, accounting for nearly half of its total revenue.

It has particularly bet on electric off-road motorcycles for teenagers. This avoids a large number of competitions from the KTM group and the four major Japanese motorcycle brands. Children's electric off-road motorcycles are not simply replacing the engine with a motor, but creating a market that was difficult for traditional fuel vehicles to cover in the past.

A Zhejiang-based enterprise is splitting the off-road motorcycle business that costs 10,000 US dollars in Europe and the United States into a children's and entry-level market with products priced at hundreds of US dollars.

And as things stand, electrification is making this business more profitable than selling fuel off-road motorcycles.

- 02 - Selling toys is more profitable than selling tools

After talking about Zhejiang Apollo, let's talk about China's motorcycle industry.

In the first 7 months of this year, motorcycle manufacturers achieved an operating revenue of 104.125 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.57%; the total profit was only 6.882 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.41%. The half-year profit of a leading internet company is even higher than the total revenue of the entire motorcycle industry.

In comparison, Wang Xi is optimistic about overseas expansion.

But the motorcycle businesses that are doing well globally are often at the two extremes.

One end is high-end brands like Harley-Davidson. Consumers buy not just a two-wheeled vehicle, but also the brand, culture and unique riding experience, so the motorcycles can be sold at high prices.

The other end is brands like Suzuki, Yamaha and Honda, which adopt low-price strategy paired with super-large scale. A large number of their sales come from developing markets such as India and Southeast Asia, and their main products are small-displacement commuter vehicles. Consumers buy them as transportation and production tools, the cheapest ones only cost hundreds of US dollars, with annual sales of more than 20 million units, and an operating profit margin of 18.3%.

The most difficult situation is being caught in the middle: the sales volume cannot reach millions of units, the cost cannot be minimized; and the brand is not strong enough to make consumers pay tens of thousands of yuan more.

China's motorcycle export is currently clearly closer to the latter end. In 2025, the average export price of China's fuel motorcycles was only 625 US dollars, nearly 70% of which were sold to Latin America and Africa, and 125cc and 150cc models are still the absolute main force. Chinese enterprises have achieved low prices and low manufacturing costs in the utility vehicle market, but have not yet fully replicated Honda's scale, brand and channels.

Wang Xi believes that Chinese motorcycle enterprises expanding overseas have two shortcomings: engine technology and brand building. "If we continue to compete on traditional engines, it is difficult to catch up with the durability accumulated by Japanese brands for decades at one stroke, nor can we immediately replicate the performance and culture of European and American brands."

But China's supply chain is very strong. In manufacturing-intensive areas like Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou, from design and production to the three-electric system, many components are already readily available, "you can get whatever you want".

Therefore, one type of opportunity for Chinese enterprises is to sell entertainment-oriented, electric and off-road products to Europe and the United States (such as Zhejiang Apollo). CFMOTO has earned more from this business.

In 2025, CFMOTO achieved a revenue of 19.746 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to shareholders was 1.675 billion yuan. Among them, all-terrain vehicles alone contributed 9.608 billion yuan in revenue, with a gross profit margin of 32.14%; the revenue from the North American market reached 6.978 billion yuan.

All-terrain vehicles can be understood as a kind of large toy and tool that can drive on dirt roads, enter farms and run on mountain roads. Some people use it for farm work, while others drive it for fun on weekends.

In 2025, the average sales revenue of each CFMOTO all-terrain vehicle has reached tens of thousands of yuan. In the US terminal market, a UTV with higher configuration can be sold at an even higher price.

CFMOTO sells performance, entertainment experience, channels and brands, and it took many years to cross this threshold.

When it entered the US market in the early years, due to the high cost of channel construction and the need to directly face mature manufacturers such as Polaris, Honda and BRP, its US subsidiary once suffered large losses. As the distribution network matures, its operating conditions have gradually improved.

This is also the most difficult part for China's motorcycle overseas expansion to replicate.

- 03 - High-end development is the way out

Wang Xi judges: China's motorcycle industry cannot always climb from the low end to the high end.

The new opportunity is to develop from the high end to the low end. "With the price advantage of Chinese products, the durability of Japanese products and the power performance of European and American products."

If these three goals can be achieved at the same time, he believes that China's motorcycle industry still has great opportunities in the international market.

Zhang Xue Motorcycle is testing this path.

In the past, the most familiar strategy for Chinese motorcycle enterprises was to make the vehicles cheap first. Others sell for 10,000 yuan, while we sell for 7,000 yuan.

But high-performance motorcycles are not purely cost-driven business, consumers also value the engine, handling, racing results and brand. That's why Zhang Xue has made great efforts to participate in motorcycle races.

In 2026, Zhang Xue Motorcycle entered the WorldSSP as a manufacturer. According to the official data of WorldSBK, after the first 8 stops, this Chinese manufacturer participating in the competition for the first time has won 6 victories, ranking third in the manufacturer's standings.

The competition itself certainly costs money, but it has another meaning: it can help the brand answer the most tricky question — why your products are sold at high prices?

Consumers may not believe the advertisement that says your engine is excellent, but when you really run on the same track with brands like Yamaha and Ducati, and even beat them, the cost of convincing consumers is very low.

The capital market has obviously seen this path too. On August 13, HSG announced its investment in Zhang Xue Motorcycle. HSG disclosed that the two sides will cooperate in globalization, industrial resources and other fields, and Zhang Xue Motorcycle will continue to invest in engine, complete vehicle R&D and racing verification.

According to the information obtained by Securities Times from its early investor Gaoxin Capital, this investment from HSG is about 150 million yuan, and the post-investment valuation of Zhang Xue Motorcycle has reached 6 billion yuan.

In the past, Chinese vehicles proved their competitiveness by low prices, now some enterprises begin to prove their competitiveness by performance.

Industry data is also moving in this direction. In the first 8 months of 2026, China's exports of 250-series motorcycles increased by 63.42%, and exports of 400-series motorcycles increased by 33.59%. The overseas demand for mid-to-high displacement products is leaving room for Chinese brands to move upward.

There is another opportunity in "electrification". Wang Xi judges that if you want to build a new motorcycle brand, starting from electrification will be easier, because the domestic industrial chain is more mature.

Just like the analysis of Zhejiang Apollo's product structure at the beginning of the article: the most profitable electric two-wheeled (off-road) vehicles right now.

In the traditional large-displacement fuel field, Chinese enterprises need to make up for the lessons of engine technology and brand building; in new products such as electric off-road motorcycles, teenagers' riding vehicles and short-distance entertainment vehicles, all parties are back on a much closer starting line.

Therefore, the profit opportunities in the next stage of the motorcycle industry have actually been divided into several paths.

Low-end vehicles make profits by scale; off-road vehicles and all-terrain vehicles make money from the outdoor consumption market in Europe and the United States through overseas expansion; high-performance motorcycles raise their selling prices by relying on races, excellent products and brand building; in the future, there will also be new product categories brought by electrification.

But all these profit opportunities have one thing in common: none of them are easy to seize.

Without scale, it is difficult to make money by low prices; without overseas channels, you cannot get the profits from export; without excellent products and strong brands, it is difficult to sell motorcycles at high prices.

People who really make money are all trying their best to get rid of the middle zone.

This article does not constitute any investment advice.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Pencil News" (ID: pencilnews), author: Xin Xiao, editor: Huang Xiaogui, published with authorization from 36Kr.