prendrefeu wrote:TimmS wrote:If it comes to industry leader in bikes I would say USA, with brands like Cannondale, Scott and Specialized.
Scott is a Swiss company, btw. They sell heavily in Germany as well.konky wrote:It would be interesting to hear who sells the most quality mid market bikes.
Merida, Giant. Worldwide, its not even close for 'mid-market' bikes.
Both are Taiwan based.
"Industry leader" for boutique tech?
Germany.
"Industry leader" for composite tech?
Germany.
"Industry leader" for marketing?
United States or Italy.
"Industry leader" for production?
Taiwan. China is closing in fast though.
That isn't a metaphor.
I'd love you to justify those.
If you're purely talking bikes then you can't really say 'composite tech' as they all simply 'borrow' what's already used then put a different name on it. As for production, imho Taiwan and China are both way behind the rest in terms of production technology, in fact many rely on western engineers to implement their systems. What the east is good for is mass production at cheap prices as their wages and cost of living in places such as China are very low. Once those wages catch up with the west, if they do, then compare production. I remember an interview with one of Taiwans biggest bike producers (can't remember the name of the engineer I'm afraid) and he said that Taiwan can no longer compete with China on price so they were aiming for quality instead. Welcome to the west