From geek toys to civilian transportation, Ninebot: two-wheel vehicles support half the market share

Race Track Switch: A Record.

Author | White Cat

Editor | Xiao Bai

Right now, all kinds of smart electric vehicles and scooters weave through big streets and small alleys. Jun from “Wind and Cloud” can’t help but wonder: What is the quality of the company behind short-distance transportation tools and robotics—Ninebot-WD (689009.SH)?

Performance Highlights: Revenue surges past 20 billion, profit conversion efficiency improves

In 2025, total operating revenue reached 21.28 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 49.9%.

Profit also performed strongly. In 2025, net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was 1.76 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 62.2%; net profit after excluding non-recurring gains and losses was 1.74 billion yuan, up 63.5% year on year.

Profit growth outpaced revenue growth, driving the company’s overall gross margin to rise from 28.2% in 2024 to 29.6%, an increase of 1.4 percentage points.

If we look at data from the previous few years, in 2021 the company’s revenue was 9.15 billion yuan. After two years of steady growth, in 2024 and 2025 it saw a major scale explosion, successfully crossing into the 20-billion-yuan tier.

Market & Products: Scale Domestically, Most Profitable Overseas

When a business grows bigger, you have to see which pockets the money comes from. Ninebot’s revenue structure shows an extremely clear “division of labor.”

First, look at geography. The domestic market is an absolute scale engine. In 2025, revenue from within the country was 13.35 billion yuan, accounting for 62.7% of total revenue, supporting the company’s high growth over the past two years. But domestic competition is fierce, and the domestic gross margin was 25.8%.

Meanwhile, although the overseas market’s revenue share dropped to 37.3% (7.93 billion yuan), its gross margin is as high as 36.0%, which is 10.2 percentage points higher than domestic. It contributed 45.3% of the company’s total gross profit.

Next, look at the product lines. The company has completed a full handover of its core business. In 2021, balance bikes and scooters accounted for 70.0% of revenue; but by 2025, this old business’ revenue fell to 4.33 billion yuan, leaving its share at only 20.3%, and its gross margin declined to 27.7% from the previous year.

Replacing it is electric two-wheel vehicles. In 2025, this business raked in 11.86 billion yuan in revenue, with its share jumping to 55.7%. Its gross margin also increased steadily to 23.8%, becoming Ninebot’s absolute pillar.

In addition, the service robotics business, although its revenue is only 2.0 billion yuan (9.4% share), with a high gross margin of 52.4%, contributed 16.6% of profit—an excellent supplement to profits.

Gaining voice in the upstream; increased marketing spend at the front end

On the cash flow side, in 2025 the net cash flow from operating activities was 4.44 billion yuan. From the supplemental information in the cash flow statement, it can be seen that the item “increase in operating accounts payable” reached 4.35 billion yuan.

This indicates that in day-to-day operations, the company increased the utilization of accounts payable to upstream suppliers to a relatively large extent. In manufacturing, this reflects that the company has a certain degree of leverage and bargaining power over its upstream industry chain, and can use the credit period to support routine operations.

But at the sales front end, spending is rising. Among various expenses, in 2025 the R&D expense ratio was 5.9%, and the administrative expense ratio was 5.6%, both controlled very steadily.

Meanwhile, selling expenses in 2025 came in at 1.88 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth rate of 70.7%. This growth rate far exceeds revenue’s 49.9% growth rate, causing the selling expense ratio to rebound to 8.8%.

At the same time, inventories in 2025 also increased by 1.35 billion yuan. These data suggest that, in order to gain market share in the two-wheel vehicle market, the company has stepped up spending on channel expansion and end-market promotion with real money.

Ninebot’s development over these years, as reflected on the financial statements, is a typical example of a business model switch.

In its early days, balance bikes and scooters accounted for 70% of revenue—this is a model that relies on innovative individual products to command a premium. But by 2025, electric two-wheel vehicles take up half of the “empire,” and the company’s scale therefore doubles, exceeding 20 billion yuan.

This switch brings two intuitive outcomes in financial metrics. On the one hand, the scale effect brought by mass-market products gives the company stronger bargaining power when dealing with the upstream supply chain. The huge operating accounts payable brings abundant operating cash flow—this is a real financial dividend after the scale grows.

On the other hand, moving into a mass market with a broader audience and more competition inevitably faces pressure in customer acquisition and channel expansion. The absolute increase in inventory on the financial report and selling expenses with a growth rate reaching 70.7% are an objective accounting reflection of this business nature.

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