Giant Manufacturing's King Liu: From a 4-Year Zero-Order OEM to the Global Bicycle Leader

Origin

King Liu founded Giant Manufacturing in Taichung, Taiwan, in 1972. Initially, it was merely a bicycle OEM factory producing contract goods for European and American brands. In the 1980s, rising labor costs in Taiwan and razor-thin OEM profits—alongside a survival crisis triggered when core OEM client Schwinn shifted its orders elsewhere—prompted King Liu to launch his own brand, Giant, hoping to break free from the destiny of low-profit contract manufacturing. In 1986, he established a European sales company in the Netherlands, selling directly to the end market and beginning the transition from manufacturing to branding and distribution.

Milestones

Turning Points

• Facing a survival crisis of four consecutive years of zero orders in 1980, forcing King Liu to abandon pure OEM thinking and explore an own-brand path.
• The 1981 decision to create the Giant brand and firmly invest in self-built channels, serving as the critical inflection point for Giant's transition from an OEM to a brand owner.
• Establishing a direct sales point in the Netherlands in 1986, freeing Giant from OEM constraints and truly entering the global market.
• Promoting YouBike in 2009, extending Giant from a sports brand into the field of urban public transport and opening up brand-new market space.
• The explosion of the E-bike business after 2020, allowing this traditional manufacturing enterprise to seize the electrification wave and establish a second growth curve.

Failures & Pitfalls

• Orders dropped to zero for four consecutive years in 1980, bringing the company to the brink of collapse. King Liu was once anxious enough to rely on sleeping pills to sleep, deeply realizing the fragility of the OEM model.
• Entering the mainland Chinese market around 2004 resulted in long-term suppression by local brands due to brand positioning and channel strategy errors, with input and output severely mismatched—a major setback in the global layout.
• Under the early OEM model, Giant manufactured for US brand Schwinn, but after Schwinn shifted its orders to Southeast Asia, Giant temporarily lost its main source of revenue, exposing the fatal risk of relying on a single customer.

Core Data

• 2024 Consolidated Revenue：NT$94.7 billion (approximately RMB 21.5 billion) (based on publicly available information, independent verification not performed)
• 2023 E-bike Revenue Share：35% (based on publicly available information, independent verification not performed)
• Global Employees：Approximately 14,000 (based on publicly available information, independent verification not performed)
• Global Distribution Points：Over 12,000 (based on publicly available information, independent verification not performed)
• YouBike Cumulative Global Rides：Over 300 million times (based on publicly available information, independent verification not performed)

Competitors / Peers

Competition in the global bicycle industry is fierce. Giant Group's main competitors include the Netherlands' Accell Group, America's Trek and Specialized, and Taiwan's local Merida. In the E-bike sector, European brands such as Bosch and Shimano master core component technologies, while China's Yadea and Emma are also accelerating their electric bicycle overseas expansion layouts. Leveraging decades of manufacturing scale and the Giant brand, Giant Group retains an advantage in the mid-to-high-end market, but with fast technology iteration and numerous participants in the E-bike track, competition in 2026 will become even more white-hot.