(Yicai) April 1 -- CFMOTO Power, the first Chinese motorcycle manufacturer to win a construction title at a Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme Road Racing World Championship, has held the CFMOTO Day to celebrate its position and progress in the industry with existing and new customers, fans, and industry experts.

This year's edition of CFMOTO Day was held on March 27 at the Tianfu International Circuit in Chengdu, China's southwestern Sichuan province, attracting more than 2,000 motorcycle enthusiasts from over 30 countries and regions.

CFMOTO has spent a decade building layered positions across different motorsport competitions, engineering development, and talent formation. It teamed up with Spain's Aspar Team in 2024 to form the CFMOTO Aspar Racing Team, which won all three categories of the 2024 FIM Moto3 World Championship. The team is also competing in Moto2 and MotoE.

CFMOTO Day, which cherishes CFMOTO's Chinese roots, is one of the flagship touchstones and symbolizes the company's quest to keep users and customers at the core of its experience. However, CFMOTO Day is surrounded by a comprehensive agenda of other global initiatives.

'Born in China, for the World' is not just about exporting products but about China's manufacturing innovation and cultural confidence going global, said Chen Zhiyong, vice president of CFMOTO.

Before CFMOTO entered the FIM Grand Prix motorcycle racing, many overseas aficionados knew the brand for its all-terrain vehicles. "When a foreigner heard CFMOTO, they assumed we made only ATVs," said Su Zhen, head of CFMOTO Racing develop department. “After we debuted in Moto3 and Moto2, they were surprised we make motorcycles too.”

CFMOTO reported revenue of CNY14.9 billion (USD2.2 billion) in the first three quarters of last year, up 30 percent from a year earlier. Its products are available in over 100 countries through more than 7,000 dealership stores.

CFMOTO has held the top market share position in Europe's ATV segment for more than a decade. According to its 2025 interim report, the company accounted for 74 percent of China's total ATV export value, cementing its position as the domestic industry leader.

Technology Development

At CFMOTO Day, the company held the world premiere of two new motorcycles and showcased other older models.

The new CFMOTO 500SR sport motorcycle is powered by a proprietary inline four-cylinder water-cooled engine producing 61 kilowatts and equipped with a ram-air intake system, developed from racing experience.

The CFMOTO V4 SR-RR also made its world premiere at CFMOTO Day. With a curb weight of under 200 kilograms, it is powered by a 997cc V4 motor. Its power-to-weight specifications will make the model an instant hit and a 'troublemaker' for the larger capacity sportsbike market, the company noted.

"The technology and data from motorcycle racing can feed down to consumer products, which is very valuable for us," Marcos Giorando, a motorcycle dealer from Argentina, said at CFMOTO Day. “When a rider sees that the technology and hardware originally came from racing, it becomes easier to trust in the brand.”

"You need people inside your organization who can push the bike to its absolute limit," Su said. “That's why we invest in riders, as by going fast and consistently, they can show how good the bikes we build are.”

CFMOTO spent over CNY1 billion (USD144.7 million) in research and development in 2024, equal to around 7 percent of its revenue in the period. It holds 1,812 intellectual property rights globally. Proprietary developments include China's first liter-class V-type engine, first 270-degree phase crankshaft engine, and first three-cylinder engine.

The company has also established factories in Thailand and Mexico, and it has invested CNY3.5 billion in a new industrial park in Jiaxing, China's eastern Zhejiang province, with a planned annual capacity of three million electric two-wheelers.

Foray in Engineering

In February, CFMOTO acquired a 51 percent stake in Kalex Engineering, a German specialty engineering company that designs, manufactures, and sells high-performance parts for motorcycles.

Kalex is a famous company in the FIM GP motorcycle racing environment. Stefan Bradl won the second Moto2 title with LCR Honda with a bike equipped with a Kalex chassis in 2011. The company supplied every winner of the Moto2 constructors' championship from 2012 to 2023. This season, 28 Moto2 motorbikes have Kalex parts.

Kalex was also the technical consultant of Honda HRC between 2022 and 2024, developing swingarms and chassis for MotoGP racing.

Following the acquisition, Chen and Sebastian Sekira, former head of engine development at Austrian motorcycle brand KTM, were appointed to jointly lead the combined operation of Kalex.

Kalex will continue to operate independently, while CFMOTO and Kalex's collaboration will focus on mass-production motorcycle models.

CFMOTO Racing Talent Project

Along with its engineering investment, CFMOTO has also launched a program aiming to discover talented Chinese riders aged nine to 15, granting them development contracts and placing them in training facilities in Spain, with supporting education and living assistance.

Sun Shengbo, 12, won the MotoMini World Final last year, becoming the first Chinese rider to win a youth world-level championship title in racing. This year, 14-year-old Zhong Wenze from Chengdu entered the Moto4 Asia Cup and scored points on his debut in Thailand. Both Sun and Zhong were members of the CFMOTO Racing Talent Project, which now boasts seven or eight riders.

Manufacturers from the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan dominated the international racing field in the past three decades, Su noted. Machines were not everything, as they all had talented drivers.

"Chinese companies sponsoring Chinese riders, that story makes sense," Su said. "We're already world champions," he noted. “In the auto racing world, there's no Chinese manufacturer at that level yet. We got there first.”

Independent Success

Some of CFMOTO's motorsport presence has come through riders the company chose to back independently.

Antanas Kanopkinas, a Lithuanian wedding planner who competes as an amateur, entered the Dakar Rally on a CFMOTO CForce 1,000 quad bike modified for competition. All other riders in his class rode on a purpose-built Yamaha prototype. Kanopkinas finished fifth, the best result ever recorded by a Chinese brand in that class.

Inspired by his story, CFMOTO has since supported Kanopkinas, who has gone on to race in the W2RC World Cross-Country Rally Championship for CFMOTO, taking multiple stage wins last year.

In Japan, where CFMOTO has no official distributor, a rider independently acquired a CFMOTO bike, modified it for competition, and entered a domestic endurance race, Su told Yicai. "More and more things like this are happening," he pointed out.

CFMOTO's motorsport division covers Moto2 and Moto3, the British Superbike series, ATV rally programs across multiple championships, and user-level racing events in dozens of markets.

Editor: Futura Costaglione