Chinese motorcycle manufacturer Zontes has opened the first of 25 dealerships in Mexico.
One of the four brands of Chinese motorcycle giant Guangdong Tayo Motorcycle Technology, Zontes says its goal is to offer a high-quality, affordable bike to middle-class consumers.
Zontes México sales director Juan Ballester said that talks about bringing the company to Mexico began in 2018. He would not say who the Mexican partners were, but said they saw the product’s performance in China and worked to foster a joint venture between Zontes and a group of Mexican investors.
The four models that will be sold in Mexico are manufactured in Guangdong, China, one of that country’s three principal motorcycle manufacturing cities. Highly automated and dedicated to proprietary products, the Guangdong plant has already produced 256 appearance patents, 121 utility model patents and 36 invention patents.
Such numbers have produced high levels of confidence among those who have brought the brand to Mexico.
The bikes even come with the seal of approval of Mexican motorcyclist Dubanok, who said the stigma of Chinese products being low-quality is now a thing of the past.
“There were those who categorized Zontes as the ‘Huawei of motorcycles,’ but Huawei is a company that has been a watershed with respect to the idea of a bad product or bad Chinese quality. In the case of Zontes, we like the epithet,” he said.
The firm expects to thrive in two sectors in the Mexican market: riders of bikes with smaller engines who want to be introduced to the world of touring bikes, and with those who already have bikes with large engines and are looking for a second motorcycle for city riding.
Zontes will be competing with other well-established Asian brands like Honda and Suzuki.
The company’s first dealership opened in Mexico City, and it also opened a logistics center in Toluca, in which it invested 10 million pesos (US $506,000). It plans to open 24 more dealerships across the country by the end of 2020.
Zontes already has a presence in other Latin American countries, such as Argentina, Chile, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, and Ecuador, but the joint venture that brought the company to Mexico aims to operate exclusively within the country.
Source: Expansión (sp)
