# 2025 Loss Narrows by 80%, Gross Margin Hits Record High, Niu Technologies Bets on AI to Define the Next "Decade"

On the evening of March 16th, NIU (Niu Electric) delivered its 2025 performance report. The financial report shows that the company’s annual revenue reached 4.3 billion yuan, a 31% increase year-over-year, with vehicle sales totaling 1.198 million units, up 29%. Notably, net loss significantly narrowed by 80% from 193.2 million yuan in 2024 to 39.4 million yuan, and gross profit margin increased by 4.4 percentage points to 19.6%.

In 2025, a year marked by raw material price fluctuations and intensified market competition, the substantial improvement in gross profit margin is particularly valuable. NIU attributes this to strategic adjustments in product mix toward higher-margin models and ongoing cost optimization measures.

One day after releasing its financial report, NIU held a themed launch event in Beijing titled “True Technology, Just NIU,” unveiling the world’s first AI-powered smart two-wheel e-bike system, “NIU Lingxi AIOS,” along with two flagship AI models, officially establishing AI as the technological moat for the next decade.

Value-driven Competition Enhances Profitability, Product Mix Optimization Shows Results

This financial report reflects a shift in the competitive logic of the two-wheel electric vehicle industry. With the full implementation of the new national standards, the industry has moved beyond early-stage scale expansion and price wars into a new phase centered on compliance, intelligence, branding, and profitability.

Previously, price competition was the core of the two-wheel market, with small and medium brands competing on low prices and leading brands leveraging scale to reduce costs. The entire industry was caught in a low-price spiral and profitability was difficult. However, with the comprehensive enforcement of GB 17761—2024, features such as battery safety, fire resistance, and Beidou positioning have shifted from optional to mandatory, leading to accelerated exit of non-compliant companies and increased industry consolidation.

NIU’s gross margin performance in 2025 vividly illustrates this trend. The company proactively adjusted its product strategy, no longer blindly pursuing scale in the low-end market, but focusing resources on higher-margin models. This strategic choice is validated by data: total vehicle revenue in the Chinese market grew 41.6% year-over-year, with sales volume increasing by 46%. The simultaneous growth in volume and price reflects effective product mix optimization.

NIU CEO Li Yan attributed the performance to “integrating innovative technology with NIU’s iconic design,” with new products continuing to lead market trends. In an increasingly segmented industry, this product strength is translating into tangible financial returns. Leading brands like Yadea and Aima, with their channel and scale advantages, are consolidating their market positions, while emerging brands like NIU are carving out their own space through differentiated product positioning amid industry giants.

“This is a representative financial report; it’s not just NIU’s story,” said a chief analyst from a securities firm’s transportation equipment industry research institute. After years of price wars and policy transitions, the competitive logic of the two-wheel electric vehicle industry is undergoing a substantive change. With the full implementation of the new national standards, compliance costs have become a rigid threshold. Features once used as storytelling points—such as battery safety and smart configurations—are now fundamental conditions determining whether companies can stay in the game.

Alongside the financial results, NIU also provided forecasts for 2026. The company expects first-quarter revenue to increase by 30% to 50%, with full-year vehicle sales reaching 1.7 to 1.9 million units, a 40% to 60% increase year-over-year. In the context of the industry entering a stock-based competition, this growth outlook has attracted widespread market attention. By the end of 2025, the company held a total of 1.116 billion yuan in cash, cash equivalents, fixed deposits, and short-term investments, providing ample resources for the next round of expansion.

In terms of channel development, by the end of 2025, the number of domestic stores reached 4,540. NIU plans to open over 1,000 new stores in 2026, with a net increase of about 800. Notably, the company explicitly stated that it aims to complete a comprehensive review of its store network in the first half of the year, emphasizing channel quality over mere quantity expansion. Capacity deployment is also progressing; the company has reached agreements on new production bases, which are expected to start operations by the end of April, ensuring capacity for the 40% to 60% sales growth target in 2026.

Defining the Next Decade with AI

If the financial report showcases NIU’s adjustments over the past year, the launch event on March 17, 2026, reveals the company’s strategic ambitions for the future.

Currently, the two-wheel electric vehicle industry is mired in homogeneous competition, with most brands’ “smart” features limited to basic app remote control functions. Meanwhile, AI large models, visual recognition, and Level 2 autonomous driving technologies have become mature in the automotive field, but industry lacks truly practical AI-grade products.

At this launch, NIU unveiled the world’s first AI-powered smart two-wheel vehicle system, “NIU Lingxi AIOS.” It is defined as the “central hub of the two-wheel smart ecosystem,” dubbed the “superbrain” for two-wheel vehicles, and is the industry’s first mass-produced two-wheel smart vehicle system equipped with the Qwen 3.5 large model. As the first riding AI intelligent agent, the “NIU Classmate” Beta voice system has been fully launched for public testing and will be included free of charge with new models, offering users an interactive AI experience. Users can wake the vehicle with “Hello NIU” to enable full-vehicle voice control and natural dialogue, facilitating convenient driving commands. Its offline interaction technology ensures commands are executed seamlessly even without internet connectivity.

On the hardware front, NIU has assembled top global chip and sensor partners. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon digital chassis solutions and its series of system-on-chip products for two-wheel vehicles provide “smart brains” for the bikes; Digua Robotics’ Xuri series intelligent computing chips support real-time inference and efficient decision-making for smart riding assistance; Hesai’s ultra-high-performance solid-state laser radar FTX, with a maximum 180°×140° ultra-wide field of view, acts as the vehicle’s “super eyes” in complex urban scenarios.

In software and ecosystem experience, Shanghai Haisi offers the Diting solution based on the open-source HarmonyOS operating system; Quectel provides one-stop smart hardware solutions for NIU; Zebra Intelligence collaborates with NIU to develop the world’s first “designed for two-wheel vehicles” intelligent cockpit solution by integrating the Qwen 3.5 large model; neueHCT leverages its accumulated AI-assisted driving algorithms from the automotive sector, systematically adapting them for two-wheel scenarios.

In the realm of safe mobility, Amap provides NIU with a comprehensive safety warning system based on Eagle Eye protection. This system, integrating Amap’s open platform spatial big data and cloud AI, can monitor real-time traffic conditions, detect potential risks such as sharp curves, sudden braking ahead, or fast approaching vehicles from behind, and issue seconds-level alerts to give drivers crucial reaction time.

NIU’s new flagship models, NXT2 and NX2, target urban elites and performance enthusiasts respectively. Meanwhile, the company’s “AI Good Car” new value proposition is fully implemented. “From passive safety to active safety, from single-vehicle intelligence to connected collaboration—these are paths already taken by the automotive industry,” said automotive industry analyst Zhao Yongqi, speaking to Huaxia Times. He noted that two-wheel electric vehicles are replicating this evolution. For riding environments that are more complex and pose higher safety risks, this technological sinking may have even more immediate value than in the car industry.

Of course, deploying AI in two-wheel scenarios still faces challenges. Balancing battery endurance with high computational power consumption, ensuring perception reliability in complex road conditions, and cultivating user habits for intelligent features all require ongoing iteration. Zhao Yongqi commented that establishing any technological route takes time for validation, but choosing the right direction is often more important than immediate perfection. “From the profitability improvement in 2025 to AI deployment in 2026, NIU demonstrates a coherent strategic rhythm.”