Super Soco has been trending on Google over the past few days, following on from a product launch presentation at Hangzhou by the company earlier this week.
The majority of the websites reporting on this have been in Chinese or Spanish, and what seems to have attracted the most attention is the new scooter released by Super Soco, a smart electric scooter, called the 'Soco CU'. Pictures and graphics of the scooter are on the Super Soco website.
From what I gather looking over the various webpages on the topic, the following features of this scooter seem to be of particular interest:
*A multi-functional HD camera built into the scooter
*The minimalist design, with some features of the scooter having something of a sci-fi look
*The scooter seems to have been developed in partnership with the Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi, and as a result the scooter is smartphone compatible: a phone can be used to keep track of location of the scooter, for example.
*The low price tag. The European websites are reporting that the retail price for all three models is under 1000 Euros.
It looks as if Super Soco are presenting the scooter as more akin to an electronic gadget or an iPad than a vehicle, and even the price tag would seem to be in the same ballpark.
I think the name, CU, is meant to be like the abbreviated form of the spoken word 'cool'- somewhat reminiscent of the slogan they used to have on the Vmoto website 'Global cooling, one kilometre at a time'. (Looking over the old company announcements, it looks as if Vmoto dropped this slogan at the end of 2014, and from then on the company image became a tad more conservative- it may not have been entirely coincidental that Super Soco was established the following year.)
Something that caught my attention at the end of the Super Soco presentation was this point highlighting 'peak car- the future of travel':
I get the impression that the inference here is that in a post-carbon world, an increasing proportion of vehicles are likely to be two-wheeled vehicles, with cars making up a shrinking slice of the pie, a view with which I tend to agree with but not a view which seems to get much airing in the Australia financial media.
But to bring things back to Vmoto: In the 'Market Update' announcement from VMT on the 8th of January, the third bullet point states: Agreement signed with emerging EV technology company Super Soco for Super Soco to relocate to and lease a portion of Vmoto's Nanjing manufacturing facility to facilitate further cooperation on manufacturing, supply chain management, product development and international sales and marketing...
In light of the point above, I think it is a fair assumption that Vmoto has probably been involved in the development of the new Soco Cu scooter.
Naturally, you might be inclined to conclude that the launch of this new scooter by Soco might be an indication that the two companies are set to merge, and maybe so; however I am increasingly wondering if the ambiguous relationship between the two companies might be a deliberate strategy: perhaps the two companies want to keep their brands distinct, Super Soco being the fresh 'cool' brand and Vmoto the established 'bulk' brand.
At any cost, I don't have much doubt that Vmoto will stand to benefit if the latest scooter from Super Soco proves to be as much a hit in the real world as it is on the internet, and I would suggest that the recent on-market share purchases by Charles Chen might have something to do with this.
VMT Price at posting:
5.7¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
