Chinese motorcycle brand CFMOTO has been accelerating its momentum in the Czech market, as European riders broaden their horizons beyond traditional bike makers.
The brand has been gaining attention from Europe's top riders. In the Czech Republic's Vilanec, European rally champion Tomas Valal recently tried out a CFMOTO bike, taking it for a ride on a course consisting of mud, rocks and steep climbs. He was impressed by the bike's design.
"The design is cool, compact and lightweight. It's not heavy," he said.
2026 is the second year the CFMOTO MT Challenge will place in Europe, with the event slated for September. The Czech and Slovak qualifiers will send their top riders to the global final in Spain in September. Last year, the first final brought 72 riders from nearly 20 countries to Australia.
Matej Oliva was one of the riders there. He says Chinese motorcycles are changing the racing culture in Europe and reshaping the market.
"I remember times when everything was traditional superbike types of motorcycles. If you want to go to terrain [riding] or travel, you have to have a BMW or KTM and nothing else. But I think the mindset of people is different now. They want value for money," said the rider.
Beyond racing, the appeal of Chinese motorcycles is also growing among everyday riders. Market insiders believe the attraction goes beyond price to include technology, equipment and a growing dealer network.
Jan Dohnal, general sales manager of bike distributor Journeyman, said customers are looking for connectivity features.
"Customers are looking for technologies like display connectivity with the mobile phone and navigation. People want to sit on the bike for the whole day, just put a finger somewhere on the map and go there," said Dohnal.
Chinese motorcycles gain ground in European market
Chinese stock markets dropped on Monday, as AI and tech stocks continued to see-saw, according to China Global Television Network (CGTN) market analyst Timothy Pope.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down 0.59 percent at 3,882.01 points, with the Shenzhen Component Index, which has more exposure to the tech sector, closing 2.13 percent lower at 13,794.29 points.
Trading volumes on the two indices rose with around 2.01 trillion yuan (about 296.28 billion U.S. dollars) traded on Monday, up from 1.88 trillion yuan (about 280 billion U.S. dollars) last Friday.
Traditional sectors such as precious metals, coal mining, and insurance led the gains, while bio-tech stocks were among the top decliners.
The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 3.21 percent to close at 3,431.89 points on Monday.
The STAR Composite Index, which tracks the performance of stocks on China's sci-tech innovation board, closed 3.10 percent lower on Monday at 1,896.16 points.
"The A-share markets seem locked in this cycle of rally and rout for those growth stocks, particularly in the AI and adjacent sectors. Today was very much on the rout side so, while the Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.6 percent, we saw the Shenzhen Component down more than 2 percent, the ChiNext board was down 3.2 percent and the STAR 50 down 3.1 percent. Those last three are more exposed to the tech rally than the Shanghai Composite. The big losers as I said were AI hardware companies - Shenzhen Gongjin Electronics was down 10 percent, Zhongji Innolight fell more than 7 percent. But they weren't alone because the other big winning sector of the last few weeks - biotech - was in retreat today as well. Investors were rotating into gold and coal stocks as well, and agricultural stocks extended the food security trade rally that we saw at the end of last week. There were a number of stocks across those sectors, all of those were hitting the upper limits of trade today," said Pope.
Pope said the rest of the week will be dominated by earnings reports from some of China’s biggest companies.
"The rest of the week is going to be mostly about earnings. The end-of-August filing deadline is fast approaching. Friday will be a really big day on the earnings calendar. We've got BYD, PetroChina, Shenhua Energy and a lot of big banks as well. Earnings that we are going to see for ICBC, China Merchants Bank and others will give us an insight into how much pressure the big banks are under with their margins. BYD is also going to be an interesting one in light of the government's anti-involution campaign and its efforts to avert a bit of a race to the bottom in the EV sector. And before we get there, there are Nvidia results in the US on Wednesday which will doubtless impact every stock in the AI space," he said.
Chinese stock markets start week lower on AI volatility: analyst
