A big new player coming in Cycling ?

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nickyboy

Norven Mankey
I was looking at the funny bike designs from car manufacturers thread and it got me thinking.

Bikes are mainly supplied by smallish companies in a global sense, that only do cycling. No major international players.

Take a look at golf. Similarly lots of smallish companies that only do golf; Calloway, Taylor Made, Ping, Titleist. But along comes Nike and they take a look at this and decide they can invest in product design, sponsorship, marketing. Take on these relatively small niche players. And they've done a really good job, developed a very strong brand in golf.

The cycling market seems to be expanding quickly but no really big player has jumped in. So how long before someone like Adidas starts doing (and doing really well) bikes?
 

screenman

Legendary Member
I would say they have already looked at it and worked out it is not lucrative enough.
 
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nickyboy

nickyboy

Norven Mankey
Do Nike manufacture golf kit or just badge it?

Trying to be a responsible thread-starter I looked into this. Seems they invest "heavily" in product design of the Nike clubs etc. They will outsource to the same Taiwanese factory that everyone else uses though I guess. Just seems to me that there are quite a few similarities between the current bike market and the golf market before Nike muscled in.
 

deptfordmarmoset

Full time tea drinker
Location
Armonmy Way
Merida make their own bikes as well as for others, I would say they and Giant are probably the largest companies
I just checked Merida on Wiki - ''Merida is a global player in bicycle design and manufacturing, making 2.2 million bicycles a year at 5 factories: 1 in Taiwan, 3 in China and 1 in Germany.'' - ít's one of Taiwan's biggest companies according to them.
 
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nickyboy

nickyboy

Norven Mankey
I just checked Merida on Wiki - ''Merida is a global player in bicycle design and manufacturing, making 2.2 million bicycles a year at 5 factories: 1 in Taiwan, 3 in China and 1 in Germany.'' - ít's one of Taiwan's biggest companies according to them.

That's big, I'd guess that 2.2million units per year might be about £1bn per year turnover. Adidas, by way of comparison, is about £11bn turnover per year. Nike is about £18bn

To try to extend the point I'm making, 2.2million bikes and all the associated shoes, clothing, etc etc represents a big market, even for a company like Adidas/Nike. You can bet those clever folk at Adidas/Nike could do a better marketing job than the current players so I wonder what's stopping them "doing a golf" with cycling?
 

screenman

Legendary Member
They have played with the clothing and shoe side of things for cycling. Maybe bikes is just to far away from the core of the business.
 
Lots of brands try, few succeed. Reebok, Dunlop... You have to work long and hard if you have any chance of gaining market share (and you need to steal someone else's market share or create your own customers). The market is saturated. It's very competitive and functions on low margins. Bicycle manufacturing is complex and technical. All this before the really big question - credibility. How many of us would consider buying an Aside or a Nice? Not many I reckon.

I might buy a Converse tho.....!
 

Citius

Guest
You can bet those clever folk at Adidas/Nike could do a better marketing job than the current players so I wonder what's stopping them "doing a golf" with cycling?

Not sure why you think they could do a better job of marketing than anyone else? Both have singularly failed to capitalise on their involvement with cycling thus far. Nike stayed in bed with Lance far too long after the allegations surfaced, and Adidas continue to demonstrate how interested they are in cycling by not lifting a finger to develop any marketable cycling kit, despite their their sponsorship of Team GB and (previously) Sky.
 
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