(Yicai Global) April 23 -- Bikesharing startup Hello Chuxing and smartphone giant Xiaomi are just some of the big Chinese tech firms elbowing their way into the country’s electric bicycle sector as sales jump, putting pressure on more established players.

Earlier this month, Shanghai-based Hello Chuxing unveiled three new smart e-scooter offerings and Xiaomi, which owns US two-wheeler, self-balancing personal transporter maker Segway, debuted its first hydrogen-electric hybrid e-bike concept, the Segway Apex H2.

Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing’s bike-sharing arm Didi Bike and lifestyle platform giant Meituan are also entering the sector, but have more of a focus on shared bikes.

They will be eyeing the profits being made by existing e-scooter makers such as Niu Technologies, which saw domestic sales shoot up 70 percent in the third quarter last year from the year before to 245,293 units. The Beijing-based firm logged a 20.5 percent gain in net income that quarter to CNY80 million (USD12.2 million).

“We predicted this market would have explosive growth when we debuted our very first scooter model in 2015,” said Niu Chief Executive Officer Li Yan. Sales of electric scooters in January and February jumped 82 percent from the same period last year and 27 percent from 2019 to 3.19 million units.

The e-bike sector has been greatly helped by a new set of national standards, released in April 2019, that raised the bar for manufacturers, setting higher quality standards and also restricting the vehicles’ weight and maximum speed.

Most of the newcomers are focused on China’s smaller third and fourth-tier cities, where there are less restrictions than in big metropolises such as Beijing and Shanghai, Li said. They are also producing lithium-ion battery-powered scooters, rather than the lithium iron phosphate ones used in older models. But their entry has little impact on established players such as Nio and Yadea whose products are more high-end.

“It is good for companies to work together to make the market grow,” he added.

Editors: Zhang Yushuo, Kim Taylor