So I’m going through the news and come across this article on Yahoo! News.
Basically, Chan has a Segway dealership in Hong Kong, his home town.

He wants to assemble the units in China to lower his costs, but China is NOTORIOUS for piracy. Nonetheless, according to Chan, Segway really isn’t a money maker for him. Since opening in 2006, gross sales are in the “millions of dollars”.

Reactions:

1. You really have to price in the lost revenues from piracy to think about using China for manufacturing/assembly for cost savings.  On a per unit basis, it makes sense, but lost revenues is a cost as well.
2. Chan & Segways? – who knew???  Reminds me of athletes wanting to do either a clothing line or restaurant (one financial advisor to the stars told me he tells his clients who want to go into this area to just throw away their money - horrible businesses).
3. Popular – while I see them around town (presumably, they do much better in the city than anywhere else), I never knew they were popular enough for anyone (certainly one as high profile as Chan) to have an actual dealership.  I didn’t think the demand was particularly strong and the margins were that good (low margins don’t scare me since you can make up for it with high volume).  But looking at their website, it looks like they have many more customers than I thought.
4. Sounds like Chan is gearing up for the Olympics, which makes sense, since the only people I know using these things are government workers (apparently one of Segway’s primary target customers).
5. I wonder if there are other business applications for Segways, besides toys (like Wowwee), outside of governmental uses…so the technology is about stabilization, right?  So anything where that would be necessary: cars, motorcycles, boats (might be good for people who get motion sickness), food carts on a plan J…