Harley, Benelli, and Morbidelli are all now made in China!? The true identity of the giant capital entering the Japanese motorcycle market… [Tokyo Motorcycle Show 2025]

The history, capital, and management strategy of QJ Motor, which decided to enter the Japanese market

QJ MOTOR (hereinafter referred to as QJ Motor), which exhibited for the first time at the 52nd Tokyo Motorcycle Show, held from Friday, March 28th to Sunday, March 30th, 2025, had a large booth in a prominent location in East Hall 2, almost in the center of East Halls 1 to 3 of Tokyo Big Sight, which was allocated as the corporate exhibition area, and displayed 18 motorcycles, including models not yet released in Japan.

In the first part, we talked about the performance and quality of QJ Motor’s products, focusing on the supersport SRK400RS and cruiser SRV400VS, which will soon be on sale in Japan, as well as the proven OEM models currently on sale in Japan. In this article, we will talk about the company’s history, capital relationships, and management strategy.

With the support of the Geely Group, the company will achieve quality that is acceptable in Europe.

QJ Motor is the brand name of motorcycles manufactured by Qianjiang Motorcycle Group (Zhejiang Qianjiang Motorcycle Co., Ltd.), headquartered in Wenling, Zhejiang Province. The Wenling Motorcycle Factory, which serves as the company’s manufacturing base, was established in 1985, during the period when then-President Deng Xiaoping was promoting modernization and reform and opening-up policies.

When the company was first founded, it manufactured copy bikes for the Chinese market under the brand name Keyway, but after acquiring Italy’s Benelli in 2005, it began to focus on exports to Southeast Asia and Europe.

Up until this point, Qianjiang Motorcycle’s products were still immature in terms of performance and quality, and they were not well received in the market. However, a major turning point came in September 2016, when the company received capital investment from Geely Holdings (Zhejiang Geely Holding Group), a huge conglomerate centered around Geely Automobile.

Geely Holdings is known for having Geely Automobile, one of China’s leading automakers, at its core, as well as Sweden’s Volvo, Britain’s Lotus, Malaysia’s Proton, and other companies under its umbrella. In addition, it is also a major shareholder in the Mercedes-Benz Group. Since 2019, it has been producing Smart brand cars in China through a joint venture with Mercedes-Benz, and has established a system for exporting them to countries around the world.

With the generous funding and technical support from Geely, Qianjiang Motorcycle was able to improve its technical capabilities, quality control, and design in an astonishingly short period of time, and succeeded in raising its product quality to a level on par with European, American, and Japanese manufacturers.

This is evidenced by the fact that the TRK502X adventure bike, produced by Qianjiang Motorcycle and sold under the Benelli brand (designed and developed by Benelli; sales began in Japan in 2023), has been the top-selling motorcycle in Italy (excluding scooters) for three consecutive years since 2020. In 2024, the higher-end model, the TRK702X, continued to hold the top-selling position.

Italy is known as the kingdom of motorcycles, home to a number of leading motorcycle manufacturers, including Ducati, Moto Guzzi, MV Agusta, and Aprilia. Furthermore, major manufacturers from Japan and Germany also export their products, and the fact that Qianjiang Motorcycle has dominated the top spot for four consecutive years in this country is proof that the company’s products have the power to satisfy discerning Italian riders.

Rapid growth in a short period of time through acquisition of prestigious manufacturers and corporate alliances

Rather than borrowing the name of the prestigious Italian brand Benelli, which is under the umbrella of Qianjiang Motorcycles, the company plans to make a full-scale entry into Japan with its own brand, QJ Motor.

From what I heard from the company’s staff at the event, as a preliminary step to entering the Japanese market, they have established an engineering center in Hiroshima separate from their headquarters in Fukuoka, hired Japanese engineers and test riders, and conducted repeated test rides on Japanese roads to thoroughly investigate what users want from a bike, what kind of products will be accepted, and what kind of settings are suitable for Japanese roads.

To start with, they will begin selling small-displacement vehicles of 125-250cc from January 2025, and before this summer they will finally start selling the SRK400RS and SRV400VS, which are expected to be their main models in the Japanese market.

As previously reported, these two vehicles have been localized to fit the Japanese license system, including reducing engine displacement, and are expected to be priced lower than competitors’ products. Furthermore, the company plans to build a dealer network, expand its service system, and increase brand awareness through advertising.

However, this is only a necessary condition for selling in the Japanese market, not a sufficient one. In other words, it is not enough to sell bikes. Although QJ Motor is known in the Chinese market as a major bike manufacturer that produces high-quality products, and is gradually gaining recognition in the European market for its bikes with excellent cost performance, in Japan it is merely an unknown new manufacturer, with no brand power backed by history or trust.

However, they must be well aware of this. It will probably take a considerable amount of time to gain a reputation among users, and they probably don’t think they can break into the Japanese market overnight.

About 20 years ago, the president of Haier, a major Chinese home appliance manufacturer, said, “For a 21st century company, everything except its brand is a liability .” Turning the other way around, this statement could be interpreted as revealing that emerging Chinese manufacturers are overwhelmingly lacking in brand power, that is, the value, influence, and recognition that come with the branding of their companies, products, and services. This is likely a common understanding among Chinese companies competing in the global market.

However, latecomers also have their own advantages: their approach to technology and branding differs from that of earlycomers.

For better or worse, established companies with a long history and a proven track record, like Japan’s big four, have confidence and pride in their technology and brand. In other words, they are “attached” to their technology and brand, and this can sometimes be a hindrance to corporate management. However, newer manufacturers like Qianjiang Motorcycle lack this awareness.

He has no hesitation in making dry business decisions such as, “If we lack the technology, we can partner with a top-class company that already has a proven track record or purchase excellent products, and achieve the same results with less investment and in a shorter period of time,” “If our country does not have talented engineers or designers, we can simply hire top talent from overseas,” and “If our company does not have brand power, we can easily increase our corporate value by acquiring a prestigious overseas brand.”

In fact, since acquiring Italy’s Benelli in 2005, Qianjiang Motorcycle has continued to enter into a strategic partnership with Harley-Davidson, collaborate with MV Agusta (which was later scrapped when KTM acquired shares in the company), manufacture suspensions in a joint venture with Marzocchi, and acquired the prestigious Morbidelli, which had a strong track record in MotoGP in the 1970s and 1980s.These collaborations and corporate acquisitions have brought the company success with little investment.

Although this type of business decision has the disadvantage of making it difficult to develop the originality of a company’s own proprietary technology or products, it has the advantage of not needing to spend money and resources on developing new technology and achieving certain results in a short period of time.The idea is that in the meantime, a company can learn technology from pioneering overseas companies and make it its own.

This type of management approach may be a problem in cutting-edge fields or high-end products, but it is unlikely to become an issue for commoditized products, such as large motorcycles in the mid-range or lower classes, or small- and medium-displacement minibikes, where price and product appeal are of paramount importance. How one interprets this will vary depending on one’s personal values, but it seems safe to say that Qianjiang Motorcycle’s approach has been successful so far.