mrblue

The label on the box for my Potenza crankset says "Made In Taiwan. Designed in Italy."

Apparently some Campagnolo stuff is made in Taiwan now (or maybe it has been for a long time and I just wasn't paying attention). What's up with that?

I mean, I don't really care if it's made in Taiwan. I just thought Campagnolo prided itself for keeping its manufacturing close to home, in Italy and Romania?

MovingViolation

I believe that one of the stated aims for the new Potenza groupset was to get Campagnolo into the OEM groupset game in a bigger way. If so, would make perfect sense to manufacture Potenza in Taiwan given that that's where pretty much everyone's (*) frames / wheels / other components come from anyway.

(*) 90+% by volume of annual industry sales for bikes specified with Shimano Ultegra, for argument's sake.

Kontact 

Several Campy brakesets have been made by TRP for quite some time.

Leinster

Their website sticks to the "all made right here in Italia" story; https://www.campagnolo.com/US/en/Company/how_we_work

"To achieve these objectives, from Vicenza Campagnolo coordinates all activities on a global level and operates on all 5 continents thanks to a network made up of 5 sales offices (North America, Spain, France, Germany and Japan) and a logistics center in Taiwan."

kbarch

More to the point, from the same page: "(o)nly part of the assembly of some components is carried out in Romania, at the two units owned by the Campagnolo group." But even this claim isn't really a denial of any production or assembly of Campagnolo branded parts in Asia. They aren't saying that Romania is the only exception, just that the only thing they do in Romania is assemble a few components (no design, testing, etc.).
The real misleading bit, however, is at the top. It all starts out under the heading "Designed in Vicenza, Made in the EU" They should probably fix that.

chaadster

That’s news to me, too, the Taiwan manufacturing bit.

Marcus_Ti

Not surprising. Employees are expensive. Make like everyone else, get rid of your employees and outsource/offshore. Sure you undercut your own consumer base...but when has that ever harmed anyone (LOL).

tagaproject6

Life is rife with change and inevitable shift. You adapt and move on. Or you can stay stagnant and gamble on how long you can keep your head above water. I'm sure that Campagnolo can keep making exclusive items for those people that brand themselves elite and have bragging rights when it comes to their bikes, but in the end, Campagnolo still needs to feed their families.

Of course, they can price their groupsets in such a way that it only takes a very few units to equal the quarterly sales of say, SRAM or Shimano, but I doubt that even their most loyal consumer base will pay double or triple the price just for exclusivity. They can always shrink and make bespoke groupsets exclusively. But I wonder how many employees will they have to fire?

ussprinceton

Taiwan is great quality

mrblue

I have no qualms with "Made In Taiwan." I have some great components, frames, wheels, etc. that were made in Asia, and they've been running without flaw for years. However, what does bug me is how Campagnolo keeps touting this "Made In Italy" image while seeming to be afraid to admit they make some of their stuff in Asia. It's like: "It's ok, Campy. Everyone's doing it. You can come out of the closet now."

TrojanHorse

Different countries have different standards on what kind of local work is required to label an item "Made in...". If I recall, Italy is pretty lax.

joejack951

Manufacturing in another country from the main corporate office =/ outsourcing.

Many companies operate manufacturing facilities of their own on several continents, some for reasons of cheaper labor, but more and more for 'make it where you sell it'. China's population is a huge consumer of goods these days. No use making something in the US only to ship it to China. Yes, I realize this is a bit of a tangent in that we are discussing Taiwan but I figured it was a point worth noting nonetheless.

Racing Dan

The more they outsource the more they teach the customer that components made in far away places are cheaper and just fine ... Enter MicroShift, Sunrace, Yoleo and a gazillion other brands. Good luck

Ridelots24

Noooooooo!!!!

HTupolev

It's Campy's marketing team. This is normal, they have a long history of just kind of making stuff up. Like, look at the "milestones" section of their website; it claims that Campagnolo invented the triple in 1961*, and that the Gran Sport was the first parallelogram derailleur**.

*Triples have been around since the 19th century, and at least one patent for a triple DingleSpeed-like configuration was submitted before even the earliest derailleurs. Triples have been seeing use on endurance road bikes of various sorts since the dawn of time, basically.

**At least two parallelogram derailleurs were in production before the first Gran Sport prototype was shown, one of them (the Nivex) by more than a decade.

Marcus_Ti

Does anyone include Campagnolo groups other than custom high-end? I'm not even sure Bianchi still does.

fietsbob

Taiwan has a big presence in the bike biz and you go where you get good prices.. yes, they built a factory in Romania
some years ago, bringing costs down ..

Bianchi USA has been getting Pac Rim companies involved for Decades..

OEM factories have many Brand Name clients .. its just business..




....

canamdad

The box my Potenza brakes came in was labelled as made in Taiwan. I also bought some bearings for a Chorus Ultra Torque crankset and the box was labelled made in China but the bearings inside in a sealed plastic bag were marked made in Italy. Maybe they are getting their boxes from Far East!

WhyFi

If Raleigh does (and they do), I'm sure there are others.

San Pedro

This is what I'm thinking. It's likely that Taiwan probably has the best pool of labor and expertise for bike manufacturing now.

Sullalto

Taiwan is probably more expensive than Romania.

DoYouDiverge

I wish everything I owned was Made in Taiwan, or Japan, or Germany..and many others.

They make quality products.

chaadster

This is what I suspect, and that the packaging must be marked with its place of manufacture because of EU import requirements, for example because Campy are importing the boxes as complete, ready-to-use items.

joejack951

Centaur: Aria Centaur | Bianchi USA
https://www.bianchi.com/it/bikes/bik...DMaster=382850

Potenza: https://www.bianchi.com/it/bikes/bik...DMaster=382833
https://www.bianchi.com/it/bikes/bik...DMaster=382846

Xenon: https://www.bianchi.com/it/bikes/bik...DMaster=382877

Yes, I had to resort to looking at the Bianchi Italy site to find most of those (although I just realized that you said 'custom high-end' referring to bikes and not just 'high-end' Campy groups, which means there are far more bikes out there than I linked as I was specifically excluding Chorus on up). And yes, it is a niche market that wants to pay more for a Campagnolo equipped bike in a Shimano-dominated market.

Doge

I care much less about where it is made and much more about it being represented correctly.
If it does not matter - don't advertise it.
If it does matter - don't make it so hard to figure out.