Accumulated losses of 500 million over 4 years, the stock price has plunged by 94.5%! Once the “Hermès of the eDonkey world,” now cutting off an arm to survive

Source: Brand Observer

In the past, “the first-tier smart e-scooter” operator, Nine, still wasn’t able to break free from the fate of losses last year.

In 2026’s battle of the three e-scooter powers, it may be even more intense than you’d think.

Last month, Nine—announced at a press conference as a new force in e-scooters—said that its cumulative global shipments have already reached more than 10 million units, and it also stated its intention to move into petrol-motorcycles, with its related annual target aiming to hit 6.5 million units.

Meanwhile, another “old rival” and also a new force in e-scooters, Niu Electric (referred to as Niu in the following), also announced the launch of the F5 Speedster and the U3 series, and has raised its related range performance to a new level.

Image source: Network

When everyone wants to make a big splash in the new year, another new e-scooter force, JIKE, has also put forward an annual sales target of 1.2 million units.

It can be said that in the first quarter of the traditional peak season, the e-scooter industry was already thick with the smell of gunpowder competition—while companies in the two-wheeled electric vehicle space were gearing up and sizing each other up.

Niu, which used to be hailed as the “smart e-scooter king,” nevertheless presented the outside world with a somewhat unexpected annual financial report.

Image source: Niu Electric

Judging from the figures in this report, in 2025, Niu’s performance was so far behind that it didn’t even catch up with industry leaders like Yadea and AIMA—let alone, in the new e-scooter segment track, if it doesn’t work harder soon, it probably won’t even be visible behind Nine’s taillights.

Weak domestic growth, four consecutive years of losses, and overseas sales cut in half—under such a sluggish environment, Niu urgently needs to find a new growth point. How did the former “smart e-scooter king” gradually end up “falling behind”?

4 years of cumulative losses of 500 million

A stock price plunge of 94.5%!

On March 16, Niu released its 2025 annual report. From the surface data, Niu’s 2025 performance looks excellent.

In total, Niu sold 1.2M units in 2025, a 29% increase compared with 2024.

Related revenue also reached RMB 4.31B, a 31% increase compared with 2024, and its gross margin was 19.6%, up 4.4 percentage points year over year.

Image source: Niu Electric 2025 annual report

Clearly, Niu’s performance improved in 2025—both sales and revenue saw large increases. However, behind this improvement, there are still no small hidden concerns.

With revenue and sales both rising, Niu still generated a net loss of RMB 39.4 million. Even more “awkward” is that this is Niu’s fourth year of losses.

Starting from 2022, when Niu first turned from profit to loss, it has been loss-making for four consecutive years since then.

Image source: Tencent Weizheng

Now in 2025, although Niu’s loss is only RMB 39.4 million, narrowing from the RMB 193 million loss in 2024, the situation still seems far from optimistic.

From the financial report, it’s fair to say that Niu faced significant pressure in the fourth quarter of 2025.

In this traditional off-season for two-wheeled electric vehicles, its quarterly net loss reached RMB 88.10 million, with the year-over-year increase in losses at 21.5%.

What’s even more concerning is Niu’s overseas sales. While many peers want to open up overseas markets to obtain a new growth curve, Niu’s overseas performance is lagging.

Image source: Niu Electric

In the fourth quarter of last year, Niu’s overseas sales were only 14k units, plunging 68.4% compared with the same period in 2024.

A year-over-year half-cut in overseas market sales and weak demand also became the main drivers behind Niu’s loss in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Such a dramatic drop in sales will inevitably create a butterfly effect, ultimately affecting Niu’s global expansion plans.

Along with the release of its loss-related performance, Niu’s overall stock price trend also hasn’t been ideal. In US Eastern Time on March 19, 2026, its closing quotation was $2.93 per share.

Image source: Niu Electric

Compared with the intraday peak of $53.38 on February 16, 2021, this stock price has fallen by roughly 94.5%.

Who would have thought that, at the time of its founding—when it still had all kinds of major accolades—Niu, after just a decade, would end up in a situation that makes many investors lose confidence? And judging from Niu’s development trajectory, this was probably already foreseeable.

Lifting the game to the high end in the e-scooter world—also means cutting prices to survive

For a long time, there has been a saying in the two-wheeled electric vehicle industry: “Yadea in the south, AIMA in the north.”

But in 2014, Niu Electric emerged as an “alternative,” and it successfully drove a major reshuffle in the industry.

At the time, the founders’ business philosophy for Niu was to build two-wheeled electric vehicles using the same playbook as making smartphones.

In the early core team of Niu, many members were employees from world-renowned companies such as Huawei, Microsoft, and McKinsey.

Image source: Network

With such a luxurious lineup, Niu obtained about $50 million in investment from various institutions—even before it launched mass-produced models.

In June 2015, the young Niu successfully launched its N1 model. The appearance of this car also meant that two-wheeled electric vehicles officially entered the “smart lithium battery” era.

The launch of Niu N1 can be said to have perfectly addressed many pain points at the time for e-scooter owners.

Image source: Niu Electric

For example, regarding complaints like easy lock-picking and range dropping, Niu directly came up with industry-disrupting technology to tackle those issues one by one.

In terms of the battery, Niu used lithium batteries with higher energy density and were also lighter. While many car companies were still using lead-acid batteries, Niu’s move directly upgraded the vehicle’s range capability and convenience by another level.

In addition, Niu also digitalized everything—battery power, unlocking, positioning, and trajectories. It even supports NFC unlocking, along with functions such as vehicle abnormal-movement alarms.

Image source: Network

Although these features now seem commonplace to us and are even standard offerings for many e-scooters, it’s important to remember that the N1 model debuted in 2015—ten years ago, whether for peers or consumers, these capabilities were truly quite astonishing.

Such impressive features also helped Niu firmly establish itself in the two-wheeled electric vehicle market segment above 4,000 RMB.

Then its sales surged along the way. In 2016, Niu sold 80k units. By 2018, sales had skyrocketed to 340k units.

Image source: Niu Electric listed on US stock exchange scene

At the same time, in 2018, the young Niu also successfully went public in the US stock market. By 2021, its sales broke through 1 million units, and its related market capitalization exceeded $4 billion.

However, when something reaches its peak, it declines. Soon, Niu’s problems began to surface frequently.

For a long time, for its high-end flagship N1S, the key components included Bosch motors and Panasonic lithium batteries—these two hardware parts were also the important foundation supporting N1S’s ability to stand out among similar products and win broad acclaim.

Image source: Niu Electric

But by early 2025, the suppliers for these components gradually became domestic suppliers. On the other hand, complaints about discrepancies between Niu’s actual range and its advertised range also began to increase gradually.

In the following years, Niu remained under market pressure. Coupled with increasingly fierce industry competition, Niu had to boost performance by using a price-for-volume approach. However, this also indirectly led to the erosion of brand premium.

Later, Niu, like many other two-wheeled electric vehicle companies, began to expand overseas. But no one expected that in 2025, Niu would suffer a Waterloo in overseas markets again.

Image source: Niu Electric

In this situation, how to break through in 2026 has become a problem Niu must face now. In order to find a new growth point, Niu chose a path completely different from other automakers.

New National Standard “precision targeting”

How many cards does Niu still have?

For two-wheeled electric vehicle companies, 2025 was a critical year with both opportunities and challenges.

With the New National Standard rolled out, whether companies can get through the period of adjustment pain, complete a full recovery, and achieve comprehensive resurgence became a key matter for many related enterprises in that year.

For leading companies like AIMA, Taili, and Yadea, the new rules would bring short-term sales pressure. But from another angle, before the new rules take effect, many consumers also rushed to buy early, which helped them digest some inventory.

Image source: Taili

And in January 2026, Yadea was even expected to have profits of no less than RMB 2.9 billion this year. Compared with RMB 1.27 billion in 2024, that would be more than doubling.

This shows that top companies like Yadea still have confidence in how they will develop after the New National Standard is implemented—that after getting through the adjustment pain period, they can continue to achieve high growth.

But for new entrants like Niu, some constraints of the New National Standard are like a “precise strike” at part of its performance advantages.

Image source: Network

In the past, Niu’s performance advantages—among many e-scooter enthusiasts—were seen as a foundational support that helped them break through for modification.

Many enthusiasts could easily “crack” an unmodified Niu to change the electric scooter from the original 25 km/h to 50 km/h or even higher.

To address this kind of illegal speed-up behavior, the 315 campaign in 2022 even singled Niu out. With the rollout of the New National Standard in 2025, the anti-tampering mechanism was further strengthened, and regulatory oversight across regions also increased in step.

Image source: Oyi News

This means that in a sense, with products fully constrained within the industry starting line of 25 km/h, Niu’s costly body strength, motors, and suspension systems will be unable to deliver the same support and brand premium effect as before to the maximum extent.

From related performance as well, after the rollout of the New National Standard in 2025, Niu’s performance in the fourth quarter showed signs of pressure.

In the fourth quarter, Niu sold only 172.8k vehicles, a 23.8% decline compared with the same period in 2024.

Under these circumstances, Niu is also looking for new ways to generate profits. Based on its latest moves, Niu plans to bet on AI to rebuild its narrative for a high-end brand.

Image source: Niu Electric

On March 17, it even released the “Lingxi AIOS” system, and this system will also be launched in sync with its new models.

This system is also the first in the industry: a mass-produced smart vehicle head unit system featuring the Qwen 3.5 large model. Owners can use it to control the entire vehicle, and even in offline mode, the system can still execute tasks.

This time, can Niu ride the AI wave and become the first in the industry to “cash in” on AI-driven in-driving implementation? We’ll have to wait and see.

Written at the end

Back then, the number nine—also entering with a high-end and smart positioning like Niu—has now been able to rank among the top four in the domestic market with a market share of 6.9%.

The growth speed of Nine’s market share is also the fastest among the industry’s top ten companies in 2025. In 2025, it even achieved RMB 1.7555 billion in net profit attributable to shareholders.

Image source: Niu Electric

Nine’s success also indirectly shows that consumers are still willing to pay for two-wheeled electric vehicles with smart and high-end attributes.

As the former “smart e-scooter king,” can Niu pull off an industry turnaround by betting on AI and lead the industry to discover something again? That, at least, can probably only be answered by time.

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