Yamaha & CFMOTO joint venture to manufacture motorcycles in China

Yamaha has decided to replace its strategic investor in China, with which it manufactures motorcycles for the Chinese market, and move forward with CFMOTO, which is the most important motorcycle company in this vast country of 20 million new two-wheelers every year.

Yamaha like all Japanese and European manufacturers have made deals with Chinese factories to be able to sell into the Chinese market which like all Asian countries, applies higher taxation to imported motorcycles.

Yamaha has a long presence in the China market which it now needs to evolve along with the changing course of the local market, building a motorcycle culture and starting to demand larger displacement motorcycles in recent years. From this point of view, the cooperation with a purely motorcycle company, like CFMOTO, which unlike other Chinese giants, has focused only on large motorcycles and ATVs, seems like a logical decision.

For its part CFMOTO has been supplying other companies with engines for a long time, MOTO MORINI is one of their newest collaborations and like Bajaj with Triumph, CFMOTO is looking to put pressure on a key strategic partner. , the KTM Group.

So in terms of options, all sides have more than one reason to want to work together and they made this official today by announcing their new joint venture.

In this CFMOTO will have 50%, Yamaha Motor 44.23% and TAIR YEA LIMITED 5.77%. The new company will be called ZCYM a name derived from ZHUZHOU CF YAMAHA MOTOR CO., LTD. In the previous form of Yamaha’s presence in China, its joint venture with Chongqing Jianshe Mechanical and Electric Co., Ltd was of equal proportions, while the new company is expected to start in November 2023.

Right now at her factory CFMOTO which exclusively visited the MOTO few days ago construction works are being carried out, which may be related to the new collaboration.

In the first step, the Yamaha motorcycles manufactured by CFMOTO will concern the Chinese market, but in the future all this may very well change, just as it happened with KTM where initially the 790 was to be released only in the local market but now the Duke , as well as Adventure are coming to Europe.

The offices of the new consortium are even located in the city Zhuzhou where they were organized CFMOTO DAYS not long ago, where we also watched closely! In this small town, next to the capital of Hunan Province, which alone is a Greece in population, a new track has also been created.

Yamaha already has an extensive network of manufacturers in Asia where they supply the European market, for example Tenere, MT-07 and several more of their engines are produced in Indonesia and then the bikes are assembled in France or other Asian countries for the local markets. So it may well be that this change for Yamaha is done with the aim of being able to proceed with export, which their previous partner in China did not have the know-how to achieve…

Yamaha already has an extensive network of manufacturers in Asia where they supply the European market, for example Tenere, MT-07 and several more of their engines are produced in Indonesia and then the bikes are assembled in France or other Asian countries for the local markets. So it may well be that this change for Yamaha is done with the aim of being able to proceed with export, which their previous partner in China did not have the know-how to achieve…