Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Niu Technologies' Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. Now, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Jason Yang, Investor Relations Manager of Niu Technologies. Mr. Yang, please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's conference call to discuss Niu Technologies results for the fourth quarter 2020. The earnings press release, corporate presentation, and financial spreadsheets have been posted on Niu's investor relations website. This call is being webcast from the company's IR website, and the replay of the call will be available soon. Please note today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors. The company's actual results may be materially different from those expressed today. Further information regarding the risk factors is included in the company's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law.
Our earnings press release and this call include discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. The press release contains a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results. On the call with me today are our CEO, Dr. Yan Li, and our CFO, Mr. Hardy Zhang. Now, let me turn the call over to Yan.
Thanks, Jason, thanks, everyone, for joining us on this call today. In Q4, we saw a strong growth of the domestic China market and strong signals for the overseas market recovery from COVID-19. We have had substantial growth in Q4, with total sales volume reaching 150,000 units, a 41.6% year-over-year increase. The sales volume in the China market reached 137,000, a 35% year-over-year increase.
Whereas the volume in the international market rose by nearly 3x to more than 12,000 units, a 197.1% year-over-year increase. Despite the challenges that COVID-19 had on the market economic condition globally, our 2020 annual year sales volume still passed 600,000 units, an increase of 42.8% compared to 2019. The sales volume in the China market eclipsed 570,000 units, a 45.8% year-over-year increase.
Whereas the volume in the international market reached over 29,000 units, a slight increase from 2019 despite the challenges that COVID-19 lockdowns had on key markets around the world. Despite the initial impact of COVID-19 in Q1 2020, we have realized a rapid growth last year. This result is well in line with our aggressive growth strategy made Niu 2.0 set for 2020 and beyond.
Under our Niu 2.0 strategy, we're rapidly expanding our product portfolio to meet the specific needs of different market segments of the urban commuter customer by leveraging our unique design and advanced technology. In addition to expanding our product range, we are committed to expanding the reach of the retail sales network. This will mean expansion to more cities while simultaneously creating a more dense sales network in existing cities.
The year 2020 was the first year we put our Niu 2.0 strategy into play, and we have achieved significant results in both product portfolio and the sales network expansion. In 2020, we introduced four new products to the China electric bicycle market segment, the MQ, the MS, and TQ, G0 , all affordably priced between RMB 2,499-RMB 5,799, approximately $375-$900 at today's exchange rate.
These four new electric bicycle products have been a hit in each of their respective target markets, accounting for 41.2% of our 2020 sales. These four products cover the two major design style, a simple naked e-bicycle and a fully covered e-bicycle, with a riding range from 40 km- 90 km on a single charge, meeting multiple consumer segments' mobility needs at an affordable price. Now, for the electric motorcycle market, we have expanded upon our signature NQi and NQi + products.
We rolled out a G3 series in 2020 for the new market space in China, while introducing the NQi GT for our international customers. The upgraded G3 is bigger in size, with faster speed ranging from 40 km/h-60 km / h, and a price range from RMB 4,599-RMB 6,799, a good complement to our electric motorcycle offerings. For the Europe and Americas market, we launched a new product called NQi GT, inherited the design style of our award-winning N- series, and combined with our GT powertrain technology.
NQi GT is a dual-battery electric moped with a top speed up to 70 km/h and a range of 110 km on a single charge, priced at EUR 3,399. Besides scooter and motorcycle products, we continue to enrich our accessory portfolios. In 2020, we expanded our accessory lines by over 150 new products.
With more than 1.6 million customers globally, we have a strong customer base to sell into. The 47.6% growth in accessory and spare parts sales in 2020 for the China market last year is an indicator that we are on the right track to further tap into this revenue stream. Now, supported by the new product launches in the first three quarters in 2020, we accelerated our sales network expansion in Q4.
In Q4, we added 350 branded stores and reached a total count of 1,616 stores in China, setting a quarterly record in store expansion. For the entire year, we added 566 stores, much more than the last three years, despite the COVID-19 impact in the first two quarters. Not only were we able to add more stores, we also strengthened our footprint in more lower-tier cities around China.
We now have 66 cities in China that have five or more Niu branded stores, a 30%+ jump from 2019. Now, for international market in 2020, we have increased our market coverage to 46 countries from 38 in 2019. We added an additional 90 flagship stores and the premium stores across the globe.
Outside of China, we now have 116 flagship and premium stores as compared to 26 at the end of 2019, despite the COVID-19 situation. Keep in mind that we continue to sell products through a network of more than 1,000 dealers outside China. The expansion of our new flagship and premium overseas stores will be of great benefit to future retail growth as we expand the product range to meet mobility needs and trends of those regions.
Now, in addition to the channel expansion in the international market, we also made significant strides in our B2B division, especially sales to support our scooter sharing operators. Most notably is the contract we signed with Lime in Q4 2020, the largest mobility share operator globally. We are now Lime's sole solution provider for the moped sharing.
Globally, now we support 19 sharing operators in Europe and Americas, with our total number of vehicles in service doubling in 2020. In many markets, shared scooters play a key role introducing electric mobility to a wider range of customers, a key first step in helping us redefine urban mobility globally. To support our new 2.0 growth strategy of aggressively entering urban mobility markets, we also expanded our branding and marketing activities.
Starting in 2020, we invested in advertising in mainstream online TV series and popular shows in China, which accumulated over 2.5 billion views online, offline during the airing of those programs. We continue to invest our effort in new social media channels like Douyin and Kuaishou as well, with our Douyin and Kuaishou quarterly views reaching 60 million and 20 million respectively.
This represents a 10x increase over 2019. In overseas marketing, Q4 specifically, we have upped our effort in social media with close to 1.3 million interactions on Instagram and Facebook. Particularly, Bella Hadid, the top American supermodel, was spotted riding a Niu scooter in New York City with friends in September 2020, which was featured in Vogue and other media as well. We also continue to invest in co-branding and marketing activities. In Q4, we launched an MS electric bicycle, Gundam limited edition.
For the record, Gundam is an incredibly popular Japanese cartoon series. In a few short days after the launch of the project, we amassed more than 50 million unique views across a variety of social channels. Our existing active users have also created many interesting stories in 2020.
We had a new fan from Shanghai who spent 261 days riding along the entire border of China, amassing more than 30,000 km. In the U.S., we had one of our overseas elite users making a video of extreme skydiving, riding out of the back of a plane on a Niu moped. The customers in Bali decided to modify our classic panels with traditional Balinese crafted wood panels, highlighting how EV and ecology can promote sustainable mobility.
A quick fun fact for you, as of this morning, our users around China have now amassed more than 7.8 billion kilometers of riding distance. Each of those kilometers is a testament to the important role we play in the daily lifestyle our users, who depend on us to get to work, do work, and go out for a casual cruise. Both branding and marketing effort have significantly increased our brand awareness.
Niu is being voted as the most valuable brand in urban mobility in China by a leading financial management magazine in China. We wrap up a successful year in 2020, we are very optimistic for 2021. Our addressable market in China, the lithium- ion-based electric bicycle and motorcycle market, will continue enjoying rapid growth that can be directly attributed to a handful of key factors and events.
First of all, the overall electric two-wheeler market is expected to grow by double digits simply because old lead-acid battery scooters will need to be retired due to the expiration of the temporary licenses granted back in 2018 and 2019. Starting this year, this will create additional demand of more than 2 million units every year over the next three or four years.
Secondly, the downward pressure on the cost of lithium-ion batteries will help to further increase the penetration of the lithium-ion battery-powered e-bikes and e-motorcycles. Just in the last past two years, we have observed this trend. In 2019, the lithium battery-powered e-bikes and e-motorcycles accounted for less than 10% of the total market in China. By end of 2020, it's already in its high teens.
In summary, we see the rising tide of market for the lithium battery-powered e-vehicles and e-motorcycles fueled by the regulatory compliance, combined with the lower cost of the lithium battery hardware, as an incredible opportunity in China that we, at Niu, are poised to capture significant growth from.
Excited with this market potential, we launched the Year of the Niu campaign during the Chinese New Year this year, which happened to be the year of ox, or the year of Niu in Chinese, on multiple platforms, and we generated more than 300 million views. Both efforts in branding and marketing have acted as a catalyst in driving our Q1 sales in 2021. For the international market, the COVID-19 situation has accelerated the individual urban mobility demand, despite the short-term impact on the retail operations in 2020.
Besides electric motorcycles, we observed significant market growth in many individual urban mobility sectors, like power-assisted bicycles, kick scooters, and other form factors. As part of our Niu 2.0 growth strategy, we have diversified our product portfolios into those fast-growing markets.
With our first power-assisted bicycle, the EB-01, will be shipped in the first half of this year, and we are developing more products in those categories for immediate release to capture the market growth across all segments. In addition, we also observed a return of growth in the shared mobility market starting from the second half of 2020, again, driven by the demand for individual mobility. We are well-positioned to capture the growth in this market in 2021 with more offerings for our sharing operators.
Now, on overall product development, we have tens of new products in the R&D pipeline for the domestic China market, Europe and American market, and Asian market. These products will cover a wide range of urban mobility categories from micro-mobility to more urban mobility.
In a few short weeks from now, in April, we will host our spring global product launch event, where we will debut a handful of new products that will be ready for purchase in the first half of 2021 for both the China and overseas market. Overall, we expect our total sales volume for the annual year of 2021 to surpass 1 million units. Aided by the suitable product offerings, our sales network expansion will also be accelerated. In April this year, we expect to celebrate our opening of our 2,000th branded stores in China.
We target to further accelerate the opening of our stores throughout the rest of 2021. International market, with the ease of COVID-19 situation, we also expect to accelerate our flagship and premium store openings. Now, with this, let me turn to Hardy to talk about financials.
Thank you, Yan, and hello, everyone. Our press release contains all the figures and the comparisons you need. We have also uploaded the Excel format figures to our IR website for easy reference. As I review our financial performance, we are referring to the fourth quarter figures, unless stated otherwise. All monetary figures are RMB unless otherwise noted.
Our Q4 sales volume reached 150,000 units, increased by 42% year-over-year. China sales volume increased by 35% as a result of retail sales network expansion, new product launch in Q2, Q3, and also strong online sales. In the fourth quarter, our online sales volume increased by 3x compared with Q4 2019, driven by the successful sales during the Double 11 and the Double 12 shopping festivals. Our 35% growth rate in China is higher than the general market growth.
According to MIIT, the China electric bicycle market grew by around 17% in the fourth quarter. We delivered a higher growth. For the international market, our Q4 sales volume was 13,000 units, a significant increase compared with the 4,000 units in Q4 2019. The sales volume is higher than our initial expectation, mainly due to the additional orders we managed to get from sharing operators in the overseas market.
With regards to product mix, N- series accounted for 20% of total sales volume due to strong overseas sales. M- series accounted for 25% due to M2 and MS new product launch. U- series accounted for 25%, and GOVA series accounted for 30%. Out of the 30% from GOVA series, 20% is from the mid-end product, G0 model. The high percentage of G0 sales volume softens our ASP when comparing with Q4 2019.
When comparing with Q3, the percentage of volume from G0 decreased by 7%. As a result, our ASP for China scooter sales improved by 11%. Total revenues increased by 25% to RMB 672 million, above the guidance we provided earlier, mainly due to the higher overseas sales to sharing operators, as I mentioned above. Our revenue increase was driven by sales volume growth of 42%, partially offset by decrease the revenue per scooter or ASP of 11.5%.
There are a few reasons for the ASP decrease. First, the sales of low-price model G0 reduced our ASP. As a result, the China scooter ASP decreased by 16%. Second, the lower spare parts sales to overseas market led to the decrease of ASP for accessory spare parts and the services by 23%. Third, the high proportion of scooter revenue from overseas market partially offset the two negative factors mentioned above.
In total, the ASP decreased by 11.5% in the fourth quarter. On quarter-over-quarter basis, our ASP, however, improved by 25%, mainly due to change in product mix. Gross margin was 25.2%, 0.9 percentage points lower than this time last year, but 4.3 percentage points higher than Q3. The lower gross margin compared with last year was mainly caused by sales volume rebates to distributors in China.
In the fourth quarter 2019, China sales volume grew by only 16%, and many China distributors did not meet the sales volume targets. Therefore, we gave low percentage rebates to the distributors. In Q4 2020, most of the China distributors met the sales volume targets and received a regular rebate. When compared with Q3 2020, our gross margin improved by 4.3 percentage points, mainly due to two reasons.
Favorable change in revenue mix, being the higher percentage revenue from overseas market and also higher percentage revenue from accessories, spare parts, and services, where our gross margins are higher than average. Improved gross margin from China e-scooter sales as a result of continuous cost savings. Despite the sales of low-margin G0 model, our China e-scooter sales gross margin has improved to a higher percentage than that of 2019, when there were no sales of G0 models.
Our total operating expense, excluding share-based compensation, were RMB 110 million, increased by RMB 23 million or 27% year-over-year. The increase was mainly caused by higher sales and marketing expense of RMB 10 million for retail sales network expansion and the way of risk branding and marketing activities. As a percent of revenue, our sales and marketing expense excluding share-based compensation was 8.6%, lower than 8.8% in Q4 2019.
R&D expenses increased by RMB 10 million, mainly for staff cost and design spend, because we have more products in the R&D pipeline, many of which will be launched in the second quarter of this year. Our share-based compensation expense were RMB 10.4 million, similar to the amount in Q3. Compared with Q4 last year, it has increased of RMB 2.6 million due to the new grants to employees.
Our income tax expense was around RMB 14 million, RMB 13 million higher than the same period last year. The higher income tax had a significant impact on our net income. Some of our subsidiaries have used up the accumulated loss and therefore began to pay corporate income tax. Our long-term income tax rate is estimated to be around 20%.
For year 2021, our average tax rate is estimated to be around 15%, basically because we can still use the accumulated loss from one of our entities in China. Our GAAP net income was RMB 58 million, and adjusted net income was RMB 69 million. That's slightly higher than Q4 2019. The adjusted net income margin was 10.2%, 2.6 percentage points lower than Q4 2019, mainly because of lower gross margin of 0.9% and higher income tax expense.
The income tax expense as a percent of revenue was 2%, 1.9% higher than this time last year. If you compare the adjusted net income before tax between Q4 2019 and 2020, it increased from RMB 69 million to RMB 82 million, a year-over-year growth of 19%. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow, we ended the quarter with RMB 1.1 billion in cash deposit, and short-term investment.
Our operating cash flow was negative RMB 163 million, mainly due to reduction in payables of RMB 119 million as a result of seasonality. On a full year basis, our operating cash flow was a +RMB 416 million. Our Q4 capital expenditure was around RMB 41 million, mainly related to capacity expansion of RMB 21 million, new store building of RMB 13 million, and R&D spending of RMB 7 million.
On a full year basis, our capital expenditure was around RMB 150 million. Now let's turn to guidance. We expect the first quarter revenues to be in the range of RMB 420 million-RMB 478 million, an increase of 80%-105% year-over-year. With that, let's now open the call for any questions that you may have for us. Operator, please go ahead.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Your first question comes from the line of Vincent Yu from Needham & Company. Please ask a question.
Thank you, management, for taking my question, and congrats on the strong year. I have three questions. First question is, can the management share with us a new plan for offline store opening for this year, 2021? How has the store opening process gone so far, given strong consumer and distributor interests? My second question is about the unit sharing operators.
Can you talk about how many unit sharing operators contributed in 2020, and how big of an opportunity these mobility sharing platforms customer will present in terms of annual unit sales in 2021? My third question is about gross margin outlook. Can management shed some light on the gross margin outlook for 2021? How much cost saving can we expect to be generated from BOM and the battery pack, respectively? Thank you.
All right. Thanks, Vincent, for the question. Let me quickly basically cover the first question in terms of store openings. Actually, I think with our diversified product portfolio, really starting off Q4 last year and even starting Q1 this year, we do see an acceleration of new store openings. As I mentioned, in Q4 last year, we were able to open more than 300 stores.
Actually, in Q1 this year, if you recall that at end of Q4 last year, we had about 1,615 stores. Now, we expect to have our 2,000th store open basically in early April. That means despite the Chinese New Year break, we're able to open another close, not 400, but 380-something stores within these three months. That's actually a tremendous growth. We actually don't expect to slow down.
I think with more product coming out, especially with new product coming out in April, we expect to open more stores even for Q2, Q3, and Q4 this year. I think right now we have about 1,600 stores. Well, by end of last year, we had 1,600 stores. I think there is minimum we can add 1,000 or even more than 1,000, 1,200 to 1,300 stores this year.
For your second question about how many units we sold to sharing operators during 2020. During 2020, we sold around 8,500 units to sharing operators. That accounts for close to 30% of our total sales in the overseas market. Normally, the contribution from sharing operators accounts for 20%-30% of our total overseas sales volume.
We also expect a similar percentage in year 2021. For your third question about the gross margin outlook. First of all, what we can share with you is during 2020, the cost savings contributes to 4%-5% of the margin expansion during 2020. However, during 2020, because we launched the low-margin G0 model, that had a negative impact on our gross margin, but we are able to offset that with cost saving in most of our scooters.
During 2021, we expect a similar percentage cost savings in all the parts and also lithium battery. Because of that, we expect the gross margin will be more or less stable, similar to what we've seen during 2020. For the product mix, as already mentioned by Yan, in 2021, we may launch further products, new products in the price range similar to what we have for G0.
Therefore, that product launch may have a negative impact on the overall margin. We are also confident that we can use the cost savings to offset all the negative impact and to keep our margin stable. This is answer to your second and the third question.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Alex Potter from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Excellent. Thanks very much. My first question is regarding guidance. The full-year scooter delivery guidance of around 1 million units, that was good. That looks around what we had expected. The Q1 revenue guidance is a little bit weaker than what we thought. It implies sort of a pocket, and I know there's seasonality to consider here, but it seems like the Q1 sequential downtick in revenue versus Q4 is a little bit bigger than we had expected. Is there anything to call out there, or is this just normal seasonality?
The first way is the normal seasonality, because normally in Q1, we have the Chinese New Year. During Chinese New Year, the factory will be shut down. Also, the logistics companies do not provide any further facilities. This year, during Chinese New Year, there's also some control from the local government because of the COVID-19. Therefore, there's more impact from that.
Other than that, when we give the guidance, we are also relatively conservative on the overseas sales volume, mainly because we see the continued challenge for us to book containers to ship to the overseas market. If we take out all this impact, if we're purely looking for the order book, we see a very strong sales volume growth for the first quarter. In summary, it's more because of seasonality, but we try to be prudent considering the short-term impact from COVID-19 or some challenges for the overseas shipping.
Okay. That makes sense. Thanks very much. I also had a question on, I guess, the prices for international scooters. I can appreciate the gross margin in the quarter was really good. There was some mix underlying that good cost control. If you just look at the price of the scooter that you sell in the international markets versus Q4, the price has come down. Is there anything specific driving that?
Not really. I think it's purely because of two things. I think one thing is because in overseas market, we are selling N models, also M models. It really depends on how much model in different segments our distributors order from us. In Q4 last year, we have some of the orders for M- series. The M -series has a slightly lower sales price compared with N- series.
I think that explains the reason. Secondly, some of our sharing operators, when they book place orders, they only order the body part of the scooter instead of ordering the entire scooter, and they place separate orders for the spare parts, et cetera, for the battery. That also lowered our ASP. For us, it's all quite normal. This is the first reason. The second reason is because of the depreciation of U.S. dollar against the RMB.
Because in the overseas market, we price our products in U.S. dollars. With the weakening of U.S. dollar against RMB, we do see some impact on the average ASP. These are the two reasons for slightly lower ASP for the international market.
Okay, great. That's super helpful. Maybe the last question I had was on supply chain. There's been, obviously, a lot of commentary around semiconductor impact on various supply chains, but also in the electric passenger vehicle market, there's been a lot of commentary regarding bottlenecks in the battery supply chain, potential delays, production delays that are impacting people's ability to ramp production. Have you seen any of those supply chain impacts, either with regard to semiconductors or with regard to batteries?
I think that's a good question. Actually, in the last few weeks, we actually observed a little bit more strain in the supply chain, actually in both situations, in semiconductor, in the chip set, because there are some chips that we're using in our central controllers. That has an impact on us a little bit, and as well as we see a temporary shortage in the batteries.
For us, we have secured some supply chain at the beginning of the year, so that helps us to really to cope with the situation. Basically, we observe a temporary glitch about one week or no longer than two weeks of glitch. We were actually able to handle the situation so far.
Okay.
But yes-
Okay, I appreciate it. Good quarter, guys.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jing Chang from CICC. Please ask the question.
Hi. Congrats on your beating guidance for quarter results. I have three questions. First is, can you give us more color on the new products to be launched in April, such as the price range and how to distinguish them with old product series? The second one is, news or rumors that we are producing or prepare to produce New Energy Vehicles.
How do we think about our business extension, such as go to the NEVs or other products? My last question is referred to talking about Gova and same price mid-end models. As we open more stores and maybe more exposure to lower-tier cities and more customers, will we consider to separate GOVA and Niu brands to different channels? That's my three questions.
All right. Thanks for the questions. I'll address them, and then I'll have Hardy to comment on as well. First of all, on the new product launch in April, we're very happy to actually invite all of you to actually attend the launch event. You actually can see the product in person and actually see the product, actually experience the product as well. We actually have multiple products of that to be launching April, covering actually multiple categories.
The categories are high-end electric bicycles, high-end, also the, let me call it the mid-end electric bicycle market in China, as well as covering the electric motorcycles in China, as well as some of the new categories like the power-assisted bicycles in the overseas market. It's actually a wider range of products that we're going to launch in spring.
We call it global spring new product launch, which is going to happen in Changzhou, and that's where actually by that time we have a phase II of the factories. We've completed phase I, the phase II of the factory will be almost ready in April. Not completely ready, but you see the gist of it, and that helps to increase the production capacity as well. I think that was in terms of the new product launch in April. In terms of the rumors on the cars that, Jing, you were talking about recently, there were, I think, I don't know, there are news reporting, like from social media.
It's actually one of our Niu users, actually, I think he is an industrial designer, and he did a concept design of if Niu decides to do an electric car, what the small electric car will look like. He posted on his own social blogs and then got picked up. We thought he was talented. To be honest, our industrial, our IT team actually tried to reach out to users and tried to see whether it is talent, whether we can use this talent on our two-wheeler designs. In his blog, he did use our logo. There is a little bit, what do you call it? Probably a brand new patent infringement. We thought we would let it go.
We cleared up in our own Weibo saying, "Hey, it's purely out of passion of one of our users." The last thing on the GOVA series. I think, on this note, even though I think we have multiple product under the GOVA series, but having said that, I think that the GOVA series still represents the in terms of industrial design, in terms of product quality, it's basically as good as the N -series, the M- series, and the U-s eries.
I think in the midterm, we'd still like to have our GOVA series under the Niu brand, because I think it actually represents what Niu brand representing, which is technology, freedom, and style. We're coming out more products under the GOVA series as well this year, and that will help us to actually bring our product to a wider range of consumer segments.
Just to supplement on the new product launch. In terms of price range, the new products to be launched will have a product in the similar price range as, like a G0, but we're also going to launch premium products with a build price similar to M2, MS. We will have quite a few offerings to our customers. Also for the new product launch, we're also going to target different customer segments.
For example, one of our new products will more target towards female. With that, it will help us to further expand our customer base and also help us increase our sales volume in 2021. That's the answer to those three questions.
Thank you. Quick follow-up question. As I know that Li Yinan, our large shareholder, he set up his own company to produce New Energy Vehicles. Is there any potential opportunity for us to, potential cooperation between Niu and his own brand? Yeah.
Yeah. I think nothing I'm aware of. I think, in terms of Niu, I think our mission was really to promote urban mobility and make life better. We're purely focused on urban mobility. I think mainly the two-wheelers. We have a product which is not launched yet, but that's a three-wheeler product still under the motorcycle market. I think this is what we are good at, in terms of what you call the individual urban mobilities.
Okay. Thank you. That's all my questions.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Alice Ma from UBS. Please ask your question.
Hi, management team. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three questions. The first one is that could you give us more elaboration on, due to the new regulation in China, how do you think the segmentation between the e-motorcycle and e-bike after the three years of transition period? As you have just mentioned, I think most of your incoming products in China are mainly in e-bike segment. Can we understand that, in the future, after the transition period, your focus in Chinese market will mostly be the e-bike market, while in the overseas market will mainly be the e-motorcycle?
Okay. Yeah, thanks for the question. I think, first of all, from the new regulation, there's a clear separation on the e-bike versus e-motorcycles. Basically, the e-bike has to be under the e-bike regulations where, for example, the weight has to be less than 55 kgs. There are restrictions on the size of the bike as well as the speed.
I think, according to some data, basically last year, roughly about 22 million or 23 million units were e-bikes, where the rest of 10+ million units were what they call the e-motorcycles or light e-motorcycles. I think as we're seeing that, whether that percentage will increase, I think it really depends on the city-by-city regulations on motorcycles, because some places where when they actually put a restriction on motorcycles, then you're going to see the e-bike percentage will increase.
From Niu point of view, we actually have product in both markets. On e-bike markets, we have our multiple product from our M2, MS, UQi+, U1, US, and our GOVA G2, G1, G0. I think it's eight product lines in terms of e-bikes. For the e-motorcycle as well, we have our N1, M+, G3, and then we have more product coming out for the motorcycle market.
I don't think it's not like we're going to focus on one versus the other. I think for both markets, I think we have an advantage in terms of design, we have advantage in terms of technology, that I think we're actually able to gain market share in both markets. The good thing on the trend of both markets is the trend from lead-acid to lithium-ion batteries. You actually see that trend both.
On the e-bike, it's very obvious because for the e-bike to be less than 55 kgs, most likely, you would need to use the lithium-ion battery powered scooters. We're seeing a lithium-ion battery start to pick up the percentage in terms of penetration. Now, for e-motorcycles, traditionally, it's mostly lead-acid. We're the first one doing the lithium-ion batteries.
People actually start to enjoy portable lithium-ion batteries because it's easier to charge. You can take the battery out. We're also seeing basically an increase in terms of lithium-ion battery penetration in the e-motorcycle market. Niu being the first smart electric lithium-ion battery scooters, both on the e-bike and e-motorcycles, I think we have advantage in terms of capturing the market growth on the lithium-ion based e-bike and e-motorcycle market.
Okay, thank you. Very clear. My second question is about the market segmentation among the mid or high-end scooters versus the lower-end market. What do you think is the respective percentage market share?
I think it's difficult to talk about the sort of percentage. I don't have the sort of the percentage at hand. I can give you a rough price range. Basically, in terms of retail price, we're seeing anywhere, the cheapest ones can go as low as RMB 1,500 to the expensive one, which we own most of market shares up to like RMB 8,000-ish. I think that's sort of the give you a sense. Now you look at the market average price, I think market average price probably retail at about RMB 2,500-ish.
Right. The market average price is about RMB 2,500. RMB 2,500-RMB 2,600-ish, less than RMB 3,000. It's like RMB 2,500-RMB 2,700-ish. I think that's sort of the market average price. Now, the interesting thing is actually if you look at our product offerings, our cheapest one is actually at RMB 2,200, RMB 2,300-ish. Even if our cheapest one, it's just right below the market average. Most of our product offerings are sort of starting at a mid-end of the market, where the traditional, the other competitors, the players, they have a more cheaper product.
I think even though there's no official data about different with the market size and the different segments, the other way you can think about it, the sales volume in Tier 1, Tier 2 cities. The people in Tier 1, Tier 2 cities have high disposable income. They also have a higher willingness to pay. They tend to buy more expensive, more premium product. In China, in the Tier 1, Tier 2 cities, the sales volume each year around 6 million - 7 million accounts for 20% - 25% of the total market. That's kind of a proxy you can think about how large the premium segment is for the overall market.
Okay. Very clear. Thanks a lot. My last question is about could you elaborate more on how you leverage the data you have gathered already from the ECUs currently? Do you use that to support opening new stores, or do you use that to more design the products first of all? Thank you.
We actually use data in three dimensions. Well, first of all the data, even though we collect the data, but all the data is being used anonymously in the sense that we use data as a collectively, as a group. We do observe the data to calculate, to analyze user behaviors that help us to one, either design new products or provide an upgrade for the existing product.
Most of our scooters actually support the over-the-air upgrades, so the OTA, where basically every three months or six months, there's actually new software that can be downloaded and upgraded to your scooter such that it will make your driving experience a little bit better in terms of acceleration, smoother, all that stuff.
A lot of those upgrades are being done by observing the user behaviors to understand how we can actually fine-tune the controller, fine-tune the software such that we improve the product experience. That's on the existing product. On the new product, obviously, for example, interestingly, we observed that less than 30% of our users actually drive more than 20 kms a day.
That helps us to understand what the typical battery capacity we need to provide for our users, such that on one hand, it can provide ease of he or she can drive three days or four days without doing a charge. At the same time, we don't want to overload the user with huge heavy batteries, which will add up the cost as well as make the battery heavier. Those are sort of the customer insights we can use for new product development.
A second part is actually, what do we have is called a heat map, because we have the users' geo information, so we know where the user drive the scooters, where the user park the scooters. We actually have the heat map that we see, and that actually helps us to find a store location, to open stores, because most of our retail stores are not just for retail, they're also for after-sales services.
You can usually think that there will be areas where we observe there are tons of users, but without a single store. That means we need to open a couple stores in those regions that will actually provide adequate customer service to the users. We do that as well. Those are sort of the more interesting things we use with the data.
I think the more interesting fact is actually, most of the data being accumulated, so far, we have about 7.8 billion kilometers riding distance. On a daily basis, there's more and more mileage being accumulated into our data servers. Let me put it this way, it's endless. Basically, the more you look at it, the more you analyze, there's more interesting facts you can find out to analyzing data actually provide a better service with a better product to our users.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Zijun Li from CITIC. Please ask the question.
Good evening, management. I'm Zijun Li from CITIC. Congratulations, and may you have a prosperity new year. My first question is, what's the main innovation direction of our follow-up new offerings, considering that the competition becomes more and more fierce, especially in high-end markets?
Sorry, can you maybe kind of repeat the question? I didn't catch it. You're talking about our competitive advantage of our new product offerings?
Yeah. I mean, what is the most highlight of our follow-up new offerings compared to other competitors?
I see. I guess, how do I describe it? I guess you have to see the product, to be honest. It's very difficult to describe what are those highlights, because every year we do those new product launches, we keep it very secret. When people actually observe the new product, there's also a wow factor, thinking, "Wow, this is actually really cool." You actually have to see the product. Let me just give you sort of a very vague answer will be, we have multiple products coming out in April, and the products-
I think more and more in this industry, we understood that different customer segments actually, different consumers or different customer segments actually have different needs for this urban mobility. Some of them actually would require longer driving distance, some of them actually would require bigger space in terms of especially if they need to take their kids to school.
Also, male, female may have a different view in terms of what's being called a beautiful scooter. I think in the past when we start Niu, it's always we start with N1, M1, basically sort of one form factor for the entire market. As we are start to actually covering a wider range of consumer base, we actually realized that we need to design multiple products with different products to actually attune for the multiple customers' segments taste.
I think that's probably sort of the main highlight. Besides, there's new, what do you call it, smart functionality in the upgraded scooters. There are also new powertrain technologies in the scooters that will make the scooter drive faster, longer mileage based on the same battery. Those are sort of the technology upgrades. If you take one highlight, you're going to see multiple design styles, multiple form factors. That actually attune for different customer needs.
I see. Very helpful. Thank you. My last question is that, how do we utilize our tremendous user data? May we have any way to explore any new functions in the future by utilizing our new user data?
I think, as I mentioned earlier, so basically, currently we're using data in three ways, right? We're using data to analyze the customer behaviors to help us to design better products. Basically, new product definition, new product design to better suit our customer needs. That's one.
Second, we're actually using data to fine-tune our softwares and software in our controllers, in our ECUs, such that for the existing customers, without buying a new product, based on the upgrade software over the air, they will have a upgraded or improved driving experience. Lastly, we're also using data in term of retail expansions, open stores, as well as sales and after-sales service stores in the locations where, what we call the white spot, where we have users, but we don't have service stations.
One more thing to add is actually the data we also use sometimes for targeted advertising, because really analyzing what our users profile, analyzing what our users' behavior, we have a better understanding of our potential users, and then that will help us to do a targeted advertising. Those are sort of the four areas we use, really just driving our main business.
Now, in terms of monetizing on existing data, we haven't done that. I think the only part we are doing is actually for the users to continue enjoying this, what we call smart connectivities. There is annual fee of, I think it was like RMB 30, RMB 50, the annual fee we charge on the user mainly to support on the data rate connectivities.
Yeah, I see. Sounds very promising. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. Seeing no more questions in the queue, let me turn the call back to Mr. Li for closing remarks.
All right. Thank you, operator, and thank you all for participating in today's call and for your support. We appreciate your interest and look forward to reporting you again next quarter on our progress. Thank you.
Thank you all again. This concludes the call. You may now disconnect.