Shortly after launching in UK last month, Chinese bike-sharing giant Mobike announced Tuesday that it’s pedaling its way to a second stop in Europe—Italy—in an extended competition with its arch-rival ofo for the global market.
The firm said it would first launch several hundreds of Mobikes in Florence across selected high-demand areas with a promotion rate of EUR 0.3 per 30 minutes during the trial stage. Official service will available to all of Florence and Milan starting August with the plan to launch around 4,000 bikes in each of the two cities.
Hu Weiwei, Founder of Mobike said: “We are delighted to enter the Italian market, and especially to launch Mobike’s operations in both Florence and Milan, home to so many of history’s greatest innovators and artists. … Mobike is committed to working side-by-side with our partners to preserve and enhance Florentines’, Milanese’s and visitors’ enjoyment of both cities.
Mobike has been in a land grabbing battle with ofo in the domestic market, and the two bike rental powers are now expanding competition overseas gradually since the beginning of this year. They are both targeting at key markets like Singapore and UK and are have been busy piling up ammunitions for a larger scale competition with large funding rounds.
Founded in January 2015, Mobike has expanded across China and into Singapore, the UK and Japan. Mobike is now active in more than 150 cities globally and operates more than 6 million bikes around the world. The platform sees as many as 25 million rides a day with over 100 million registered users.
Company CEO Davis Wang said that Mobike is planning to operate in 200 cites globally by the end of 2017.