\n<\/p>\n
For some firms, the answer to a sluggish domestic market has been straightforward: go where the motorcycles are.<\/p>\n
Indonesia has the world’s second-largest motorcycle population, estimated at 112 million to 139 million units and accounting for 85 per cent of all motorised vehicles there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Singapore, in comparison, has more than four times as many cars as motorcycles.<\/p>\n
Electric two-wheeler firm Kilats has operated in Indonesia since 2024, renting almost 700 electric motorcycles to Grab in Bali and Bandung, supported by 44 battery-swapping stations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Co-founders Vincent Yap and Sheldon Lee said the scale of the Indonesian market prompted him to start there. The firm plans to expand within Indonesia, move into Thailand by the end of this year, and enter Vietnam and the Philippines in 2027.<\/p>\n
Mr Yap currently has no vehicles operating in Singapore, which he described instead as a “springboard” for regional expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsing Singapore as the funding and brain-base allows companies to scale faster across the region, in terms of permits, partnerships and capital deployment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSingapore is our \u2018mothership\u2019 and investment holding vehicle where we plan to have direct shareholding interests in all operations overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local firm Charged Asia gets all of its current revenue from Indonesia and is looking to expand into Malaysia. CEO Joel Chang said the firm has deployed more than 5,000 motorcycles in Indonesia and is on track to deploy over 300,000 across the region in the “next few years”.<\/p>\n
Leo Electric also looked overseas first, exploring deployments in Nigeria and the Middle East, though those plans were held back by infrastructure and geopolitical challenges.<\/p>\n
While it looks to launch its bikes in Nigeria next year, it is also turning its attention closer to home, working with Kilats to introduce an electric motorcycle model in Singapore this year \u2013 one designed to plug into the charging infrastructure already used by electric cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeyond vehicle sales, we are also exploring opportunities in charging infrastructure as a potential area of expansion,\u201d said chief operating officer Nicholas Ng.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
GOING WHERE THE MOTORCYCLES ARE For some firms, the answer to a sluggish domestic market has been straightforward: go where the motorcycles are. Indonesia has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/80914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}