Segway: a punchline brand bought by its Chinese rival and turned into a scooter giant

The Segway PT was one of the most hyped launches ever - John Doerr predicted $1 billion in revenue faster than any product in history - yet by 2013 it sold mainly to tour operators, security firms and police. Roger Brown, who bought the company for $9 million that year, made it profitable within a year, but the ceiling was obvious. In September 2014 Segway filed a trade complaint at the US ITC against Chinese copycats, including Beijing's Ninebot - which responded by offering to buy the company. Ninebot wanted the patents to enter America and saw a brand with enormous recognition.

The deal was announced on April 15, 2015, at a price of more than $75 million - over eight times what Brown had paid. Ninebot, freshly armed with $80 million from Xiaomi, Sequoia Capital and the Shunwei Foundation, immediately began putting the Segway name on kick scooters and light electric vehicles priced at $1,000 or less. They sold far faster than the PT ever had: by 2018 Ninebot shipped more than a million scooters in a year - ten times the PTs Segway sold in its first 17 years - into more than 100 cities, carrying the shared fleets of Bird, Lime, Uber and Ford.

The original product became an afterthought. By 2019 the Segway PT accounted for only 1.5 percent of Ninebot's revenue, priced at $6,000 to $10,000 and affordable only to police departments and tour operators. On July 15, 2020, Ninebot halted PT production for good and laid off the 21 people still building it in Bedford, New Hampshire. The brand, however, outlived the invention: Segway, once a punchline, became the umbrella for one of the world's largest micromobility companies.

Ninebot shipped more than 1M scooters in 2018 - ten times Segway's PT sales across its first 17 years - in over 100 cities, supplying Bird, Lime and Uber.

Segway's patent complaint was meant to keep Ninebot out of the US - instead it opened the negotiation that sold the company.

Ninebot was buying patents and brand recognition, not a product line: the PT's market was already shrinking.

Segway-branded products under $1,000 reached the mass consumers a $4,950-and-rising PT never could.

The 2017-18 shared-scooter boom created enormous demand exactly when Ninebot had the brand and the factory capacity to serve it.

The patent suit proved the brand and the intellectual property were worth more than the product itself. Attach a famous name to affordable products in a booming category and the revival follows.

The combined Segway-Ninebot operation became the dominant supplier to shared-scooter operators, with police departments shifting from the PT to Ninebot's cheaper electric scooters. Since 2001 only 140,000 PTs were ever sold; the last one rolled off the Bedford line in July 2020. The Segway name now covers kick scooters, e-bikes, go-karts and robots - a far larger business than the invention it was named for.