History
Established 1972 in Dajia, Taichung County (now part of Taichung City), Giant started as an OEM, manufacturing bicycles to be sold exclusively under other brand names (for example, Schwinn and Nishiki), as a private label. In 1986, Giant, under new president Bill Austin, established its own brand of bicycles to compete in the rapidly expanding $200-and-above price range. In 1986, Giant also setup a joint venture 'Giant Europe' with Dutch race cycle pioneer Koga-Miyata from Andries Gaastra. In 1992 Giant became full shareholder of Giant Europe. Today Giant has sales in over 50 countries, in over 10,000 retail stores. In 2007, its global sales surpassed 5 million bicycles and $820 million USD in global revenues.
Read more about this topic: Giant Bicycles
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews—Micah, Isaiah, and the rest—who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)