36Kr Exclusive Interview | Dialogue with DJI-affiliated Ebike Company: Selling High-end Bikes at 40,000 RMB per Unit with Revenue Exceeding 1 Billion RMB, It Aims to Achieve a Fourfold Revenue Growth This Year

By | ZHANG Ziyi

Edited by | YUAN Silai

Amflow, the Ebike company spun out of DJI, did not pick a favorable timing to enter the track. In that year, many Chinese Ebike manufacturers had already chosen to strategically withdraw or shift their focus to the U.S. market. No one expected that it could sell 30,000 units of its high-end Ebike starting from 6,499 euros.

36Kr has exclusively learned that Amflow, the Ebike company independently spun out of DJI, has seen its total revenue exceed 10 billion yuan. Avinox, another Ebike assist system brand that also originated from DJI, now has more than 60 clients, and has completed its split from DJI to operate independently.

Over the past three years, the European Ebike market has been plagued by high inventory pressure, leading to a wave of bankruptcies among many complete vehicle brands. The market growth rate has slowed down significantly, and inventory destocking has lasted for year after year. Yet Amflow and Avinox still entered the market amid this bleak situation.

Their birth was somewhat "uninhibited".

From the very beginning, Avinox targeted the e-mountain bike assist system, which has the highest R&D threshold and technical difficulty in the Ebike sector. They spent 3 years completing the R&D, believing that a high-quality product would definitely take the market by storm. In 2023, when the Avinox team brought their product prototype to Eurobike to seek cooperation with complete bicycle brands, they found that the pace of the bicycle industry was vastly different from that of the consumer electronics industry. Potential clients asked a question they did not expect: What is your product roadmap and plan for the next five years?

"We did not understand it back then, wondering why they would ask about the five-year plan. They explained that in the bicycle industry, the R&D cycle for new products of major brands usually exceeds 18 months, and the selection and testing of core components need to be arranged one year in advance. If you talk about cooperation in 2023, the earliest projects you can reach are those for 2026 and 2027 at the soonest," the head of the Avinox team recalled to Hard Krypton.

To avoid the dilemma of having no debut clients in 2025, Avinox decided to find a partner within the system, which gave rise to Amflow — the latter built a series of Ebikes equipped with Avinox's assist system from scratch.

In 2024, Amflow and Avinox jointly released their products at Eurobike. They did not adopt a high-profile promotion strategy, only bringing 2 exhibition vehicles and 4 test-ride vehicles. Unexpectedly, people queued up for 2 hours under the scorching sun for test rides, including CEOs and senior executives of leading U.S. and Japanese brands.

This reaction was unanticipated by both teams. Amflow's first product, Amflow PL, is positioned as a high-end e-mountain bike, with two models priced at 6,499 euros and 9,999 euros respectively. In comparison, the models focused on by Chinese domestic brands generally have a terminal selling price of around 1,000 euros, targeting the commuting market. When Amflow first started making vehicles, supply chain practitioners and industry insiders estimated that the total shipment volume over the product lifecycle would only be 3,000 to 5,000 units. But the production capacity was strained just one month after the launch. Amflow spent more than a year ramping up production capacity, and finally met the terminal demand before the end of the product lifecycle.

Undoubtedly, Avinox's e-assist system played a huge role behind this success.

Before Avinox entered the market, the e-assist systems for mid-to-high-end e-mountain bikes were mostly supplied by foreign brands, forming a market landscape of one dominant leader plus several strong players: Bosch took the leading position with its long-established reputation, and Shimano also occupied a place relying on its one-stop solution integrating transmission, brake and assist systems.

The product launched by Avinox broke the traditional "impossible triangle" of high-end e-mountain bikes, which refers to the conflict that body weight, power and battery life cannot be optimized at the same time. The industry consensus used to be that the maximum parameters can only reach 85 Nm of torque, 720Wh battery, and a vehicle weight of 23 to 25 kg. But the Avinox system can achieve 120 Nm of torque, 800Wh battery, and a vehicle weight under 20 kg. At the same time, Avinox also took the lead in bringing fast charging, OLED touch screen interaction, sensor fusion algorithms and other technologies commonly used in consumer electronics into the bicycle industry.

This has made Avinox well-known in the European market, allowing it to break a corner of the market previously monopolized by European and American brands such as Bosch and Specialized. Of course, they are still two very young companies, and they need to solve problems in brand building, after-sales service, SKU coverage and many other aspects in the future. But in any case, Chinese Ebike complete vehicle and system companies have finally built a high-end brand that stands out.

Recently, Amflow also launched its all-terrain e-assist off-road bicycle Amflow TL Carbon, which features full suspension, high load capacity and customized functions, can meet the riding needs of multiple scenarios including light off-roading and urban commuting, and is priced at 3,499 euros. According to Hard Krypton, Amflow's sales target for this year is to achieve a 4-fold growth, expand its product portfolio and launch more affordable models. As a third-party assist system provider, Avinox's ultimate goal is to capture more than 50% to 60% of the entire industry's market share.

Hard Krypton talked with the heads of Amflow and Avinox teams about how DJI's methodology remains effective when entering new fields and new markets.

01 No Clients Placed Orders, So We Launched Complete Vehicle Production Ourselves

36Kr: How did DJI first come up with the idea of getting involved in the Ebike category? In terms of brand positioning, why did both Avinox (motor system) and Amflow (complete vehicle brand) emerge at the same time?

Head of Avinox team: The Avinox brand was launched to the public in 2024, but the team actually launched the project in early 2022 internally, which was called the "Ebike Group" at that time. The R&D team included the motor team, the screen shift lever team, the battery and charging team, and the test vehicle frame team. In 2024, we released our products in Europe together with the independent team Amflow. Back then, the assist system brand Avinox was a product line under DJI, called DJI Avinox.

According to our research, the global bicycle brand business is somewhat similar to the "bread selling" business, while the accessory suppliers are in the "flour selling" business. At present, the complete vehicle brands in the industry show a scattered trend, with dozens of well-known brands. For top brands, they can only account for 15% to 20% of the market share in single product categories such as EMTB.

But for core spare parts such as e-assist systems, brakes, transmissions and shock absorbers, brands like Bosch, Shimano, Sram and Fox can occupy more than 50% of the market, which is an oligopolistic market. From this perspective, the ceiling of making assist systems is much higher than that of making complete vehicles, and we should develop a public version of the system to sell to all clients. But we needed a partner like Amflow to cooperate fully with us from the very beginning, so as to set a model for the whole industry.

36Kr: Then there is no need to open two business lines at the same time, right? You can just find a partner?

Head of Avinox team: There was a very interesting unexpected encounter in this process. In 2023, we took a set of e-assist system prototypes to Europe. We sent emails to 100 bicycle brands around the world to invite them for test rides. 10 brands replied and met us at Eurobike, including top 5 top-tier brands and high-quality independent boutique brands. After the meeting, some brands clearly expressed no interest, while the interested brands asked a question that we also wanted to know the answer to: "What will your products be like in five years?"

We were very curious about why they asked about the five-year plan. They said: "In the bicycle industry, if you talk about cooperation in 2023, the projects for 2024 and 2025 have all been locked, and the earliest projects you can talk about are those for 2026 and 2027." Before Avinox entered the market, European and American bicycle brands usually spend 18 to 24 months developing a new generation of vehicles, and the planning work needs to be done even earlier.

Since most members of our team have a consumer electronics background, in Shenzhen's consumer electronics industry, as long as you want to develop a hardware feature, you can usually make it within six months. We were very honest with them: "Without user feedback and mass production feedback, we don't even know how to upgrade and improve the product one year later. So we hardly locked any client at Eurobike 2023."

After returning, everyone fell into deep thinking. If we spend two years developing products and follow the pace of the bicycle industry, the project team may not have any revenue in the first five years. More importantly, without client feedback and real-world testing, we cannot determine the subsequent development direction, nor can we confirm the subsequent iteration roadmap. So we finally decided to find a close partner to launch products to the market within one year, which is a very important reason for the birth of Amflow.

36Kr: What are the current sales volume and performance of Amflow and Avinox respectively?

Head of Amflow team: Amflow has achieved a sales volume of more than 30,000 units.

36Kr: Then the revenue should reach 2 billion yuan?

Head of Amflow team: It's over 1 billion yuan.

36Kr: Is this sales volume beyond expectation? Or was it within expectation?

Head of Amflow team: When we first started, we consulted industry experts and supply chain practitioners, and after seeing the vehicle, they estimated that: "The vehicle is really well made, but the market situation is very poor now, and 1,000 units would be a remarkable achievement at most."

Because the mountain bikes we make are very expensive and professional products. We ourselves thought the sales volume might be a little higher than their estimate, but we never expected it to be so high.

The first batch of products were in short supply after launch. We spent more than a year ramping up production capacity. To allow more clients to get their vehicles earlier, almost every vehicle delivered to European consumers in the early stage was airlifted from Taiwan, China at extra cost. Our first product Amflow PL has sold more than 30,000 units. In the high-end e-mountain bike category priced above 6,000 euros, we estimate that it has ranked first in single-model sales volume in 2025.

36Kr: What is your target for this year?

Head of Amflow team: It is estimated that the sales volume will grow another 4 times. We will expand our product types this year and launch more user-friendly models.

36Kr: What about the shipment volume of Avinox?

Head of Avinox team: In 2025, apart from Amflow, other ToB clients have just started their business. Compared with Bosch, our shipment volume is less than a fraction of its. We have more than 60 clients this year, and at least in terms of the number of OEM clients, we expect to rank second in the industry by the end of this year.

36Kr: I am curious, during the process of Amflow selling 30,000 units, did you spend a lot on channel resources and marketing?

Head of Amflow team: Compared with the bicycle industry, our peers do a lot of sports marketing and event sponsorship, such as inviting Red Bull champions, building bicycle parks and so on. We have not done any of these yet. We want to first focus resources on product R&D, ensure product quality and after-sales service. We also give more discounts to terminal consumers on the price, hoping that consumers can really buy high-quality products with high cost performance. So whether compared with the consumer electronics industry or our peers, our marketing expenses are definitely not high. In addition, bicycle stores are very important partners for us and also important channels to provide services to consumers, so we have also invested a lot of resources in channel construction.

We reviewed Eurobike 2024. Due to the tight preparation time, we only took 6 vehicles there, of which only 4 were available for test rides. As a result, the queue lasted for one hour on the first day, and directly reached two hours on the second day, with people lining up around the booth. The bosses and CEOs of many well-known complete vehicle brands, as well as the engineering teams of Shimano, Bosch and Brose, came to queue up for test rides in groups in the following days. It was very hot in June in Germany, there was no water or shelter outdoors, and the longest queue lasted for two hours. As an industry exhibition, everyone's meeting schedule was full, but they pushed aside their meetings to queue up. Most of them were on the verge of breaking down before they got the vehicle. But after riding a lap, everyone had a smile on their face and congratulated us sincerely. This made our reputation widely known.

36Kr: Why were they willing to queue up at the exhibition back then? After all, Amflow is a very new brand. Did you use DJI's name to attract them?

Head of Amflow team: It is undeniable that we did leverage DJI's reputation to a certain extent, but as an independent complete vehicle brand, the more important reason must be the product strength itself, which has strong momentum and highlights, and the marketing team also did some work to amplify these highlights. The traditional bicycle industry rarely sees brands and products that claim to be "innovative" and "technology-driven" with real capabilities entering this track. We brought great sense of mystery and freshness, and launched a very cohesive punch all of a sudden, which was very powerful and produced obvious effects.

There was a default "impossible triangle" for traditional high-end e-mountain bikes: body weight, power and battery life, no one could balance them. The industry consensus was that the maximum torque can only reach 85 Nm, and the vehicle weight ranges from 22 to 25 kg. We broke this rule, and directly set a new benchmark for the entire industry.

Everyone came to find out with disbelief or curiosity, and then found that our company really made it, which generated subsequent fission effects.

36Kr: Specifically when expanding offline stores, how did you win over these conservative European merchants? Also, for distributors themselves, they have priority in internal resource allocation, they can recommend your products or other brands' products. How do you balance this?

Head of Amflow team: We visited many European bicycle stores and found a lot of interesting points. There are three types of clients who finally converted successfully for Amflow: The first type of clients did not come to the store because it was close to their location, but found the dealer on Amflow's official website and specifically asked to buy an Amflow vehicle. This type of users accounts for about 30-40%.

The second type are clients who come to the store through natural traffic. For store clerks, the transaction conversion rate is the most important thing. So when there is a gap in product strength, they usually prioritize recommending products with higher transaction possibility. Amflow's higher success rate makes them prioritize recommending our products.

For store owners, many of their stores have a history of more than 50 years, and they run business with regular customers, so they attach great importance to personal reputation. To operate for a long time in the local community, they must recommend the products they think are the most matching and top-tier, so that consumers will trust them in the future. And consumers from stores that sell well will bring more passenger flow, which will stimulate surrounding stores to place orders, forming a positive cycle.

When our complete vehicle products are one generation ahead of other products, product strength becomes the absolute weapon to win over these experienced merchants.

36Kr: Everyone knows that Amflow is your "sister company", so you two naturally have a better cooperation. Then where does the trust of B-end complete vehicle brands in you come from?

Head of Avinox team: First of all, in fact, Avinox and Amflow operate independently. Secondly, to make all brands trust us, we cannot just tell stories, we need to prove it with actions.

Around 20 brands jointly launched new products equipped with the Avinox M2 series in April. If the first 10,000 motors produced by Avinox were all prioritized to supply Amflow, other brands only got prototypes and small batches of goods, then in the next generation, even if they thought other brands' motors were not that good, they would be more likely to choose other brands, because those brands can at least provide stable supply to keep their business running. We will definitely not do such self-defeating behavior.

In fact, when the assist systems of the M2