The rise of Chinese bike brands: The key players UK riders should know

While last year’s overall UK motorcycle sales were disappointingly down by around 20 per cent, the other headline sales stat of the year was surely the increase and success of previously little-known Chinese brands such as Voge, CFMoto and, most recently, QJMotor.

Voge, for example, was launched by vast Chinese manufacturer Loncin as its new premium brand in 2018, and in 2024, its BMW F900-derived DS900X proved a Europe-wide best seller for its high spec, credible performance and sub-£9K price.

While one of the latest, QJMotor, is probably the biggest of all, and is behind revived Benelli and Morbidelli, and has now launched under its own name, too, and there are many, many more.

But what do we know about them, exactly? How big are they? When were they founded? What do they make and what can we expect in the future? We decided to do a ‘deep dive’ and find out everything you need to know on the major players…

CFMoto – KTMs, quads and more

Let’s start with one of the oldest and most familiar of all. Zhejiang Chunfeng Power Co., Ltd., more commonly known by its trade name of CFMoto, was founded in 1989 in Hangzhou, China, by Lai Guoqiang, initially as an engine producer/supplier (as well, oddly, as a side-line in yachts) before branching out in the early 2000s to make complete machines – primarily ATVs or ‘quads’. 

Significantly, it entered into a ‘strategic partnership’ with KTM in 2011, initially to supply components and later engines, and in 2017, this developed into a joint venture (51 per cent owned by CFMoto) which resulted in some KTMs being produced and sold in China, later some KTMs (notably the 790 Adventure) being produced by CFMoto for global sales and crucially also, some new CFMoto machines using KTM-derived tech going on sale in Europe. In 2022 CFMoto entered the Moto3 world championship with a KTM-based machine.

Following KTM’s financial woes and Bajaj taking increasing control (in November the Indian firm took 74.9 per cent ownership), KTM divested some of its CFMoto connections, such as its European distribution. In the UK, due to the quad connection, Quadzilla took over CFMoto distribution. Today CFMoto UK offers six models ranging from the 125NK learner naked to 800MT-X adventure.

QJMotor – Benelli, Harleys, Morbidelli…

Of all the Chinese motorcycle companies, QJMotor is not only the most recent but also one of the biggest and most significant.

It’s the ‘own brand’ motorcycle of the huge Qianjiang Group, best known to motorcyclists for owning Benelli since 2005, is also behind Morbidelli and, last autumn launched in the UK with its ‘QJMotor’ brand via independent importers MotoGB.

Qianjiang was founded in 1985 in Wenling, China, has been part of the even vaster Geely group since 2016 (which also owns Volvo, Polestar and Lotus cars), and last year produced over 1.5million motorcycles. 

Among those production figures are a number of collaborations, most eye-catchingly with Harley-Davidson, which sees H-D’s Chinese-market X350 and X500 models made by Qianjiang.

Qiangjiang’s export arm is called Keeway, which owns Benelli and also produces some lightweight machines under its own name. In 2021 Keeway also set up the MBP brand. Following the death of Giancarlo Morbidelli, MBP bought the rights to the historic Italian Morbidelli brand in 2024. The first new Morbidelli-badged bike was the C1002V 1000cc V-twin cruiser followed by the T1002V, an adventure bike is based on a modified version of the engine as designed at Keeway’s design centre in Benelli/Morbidelli’s historic home of Pesaro, Italy, developed in Germany and Spain and built in China.

While in the autumn of 2025, Qianjiang also began exporting to Europe a further range of bikes this time under its own QJMotor brand. An initial six models are being brought in first, with plans to quickly increase this to around 16, 20 dealers have already been signed up and there are more to come. Got all that? Good.

Loncin – BMW, Voge and… Honda?

The Loncin Motor Company was founded in 1993 as a small repair shop in Chongqing, China and has since grown to be a global giant,

manufacturing engines, motorcycles and ATVs, being an engine supplier for BMW, has its own premium export brand Voge (now also distributed in the UK by MotoGB) and today, via production, distribution and marketing facilities in Chongqing, Zhejiang and Guangdong, has a reported annual production capacity of 2,500,000 motorcycles, 3,000,000 engines and 150,000 ATVs.

A key milestone in its growth came in 2005 when Loncin entered a strategic partnership with BMW Motorrad to produce engines for the then G650GS, a relationship that significantly enhanced their technical capabilities. This has since expanded to include other components, the F-series twin-cylinder engine (since 2017, previously made by Rotax) and the complete assembly of BMW’s C400X and C400GT scooters.

This in turn, under specific guidelines, led to Loncin’s launch, in 2018, of its new, export brand Voge, using derivates of the same engine. In 2024 its BMW F900-derived DS900X proved a massive seller for its high spec, credible performance and sub-£9K price. Further Voge adventure models have followed, including 125s, 500s, with the latest being the DS625X, which uses a reverse-engineered, enlarged version of Honda’s 471cc twin as used in the CB500 series…

Zongshen – lightweights and Lexmoto

Another which started out in small, humble ways is Zongshen. The Chinese giant which now produces motorcycles, quads, generator and engines, was founded by Zuo Zongshen in Chongqing in 1982 as small motorcycle repair shop called ‘Master Zuo’. However, in 1992 he expanded into manufacturing with the foundation of the Zongshen company (sometimes called Zonsen).  1992.  In 2007, Zongshen invested CNY300 million (approx. £31million) into a new research and development centre and by 2012, Zongshen exported roughly 30% of its motorcycle production.

These bikes are mostly smaller and less well-known than some other Chinese marques, partly because Zongshen supply the likes of Lexmoto in Europe (as do others) and also because they focus more on less develop nations globally however it still claims today to have a yearly output of over 1,000,000 motorcycles. 

Zhongneng Vehicle Group – Moto Morini

Zhongneng? Who are they? Well, since October 2018, this other Chinese manufacturing giant has been the owner (and now producer) of the former legendary Italian marque Moto Morini, which made its name with the likes of the 3 ½ Sport V-twin in the 1970s then had a brief revival with its Corsaro 1200 and more in the early Noughties. They operate in a similar way to Benelli in being Italian-designed (via a design and engineering headquarters in Milan) but Chinese built but have so far struggled in the UK in by not having a proven distributor, although this has, like many others, recently been taken up by MotoGB. It currently offers two models to the UK, the X-Cape 700 and X-Cape 1200 with more, including the Calibro bagger, promised to follow soon.

Hangzhou Saturn Power Technology – Benda Moto

If you haven’t heard of the snappily titled Hangzhou Saturn Power Technology company, you probably have heard of the also unfortunately titled Benda Moto, its brand of mostly cruiser-style bikes, which are also now being imported into the UK by MotoGB.

Launched as a standalone cruising brand as recently as 2016, the first Bendas were shown at EICMA in Milan in 2019, the company has already sold over a million motorcycles mostly in China, it now has a line-up which employs five different home-brewed powertrains, and for 2025 it partnered with Keeway (who’s also behind Morbidelli and Voge) for worldwide distribution including its arrival in the UK. As Keeway already has strong links with MotoGB, it was only natural that MotoGB handled Benda’s UK distribution too, and the result, today, is three different models, the Chinchilla and NapoleonBob 500s plus the LFC700 four, with more to come.

The name, Benda, incidentally, derives from ‘B and D Motorcycles’, but, considering the oddball model names as well, we think they might need to try harder…

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