China’s first official bike rental bankruptcy leaves RMB 800 million of deposits in limbo

Bike rental company Xiaoming has officially begun bankruptcy proceedings becoming China’s first bike rental company to do so. The decision of the Intermediate People’s Court of Guangzhou, which was in charge of the case, was announced yesterday, July 10th, the Paper reports.

Xiaoming (小鸣单车) was part of a big wave of bike rental companies that started to fold and experience troubles with deposit returns at the end of last year. By November 2017, six bike rental companies in China have shuttered, including Coolqi. Once China’s third largest player in the bike-rental space, Bluegogo, found itself in deep debt and was taken over by ride-hailing giant Didi. Meanwhile, thousands of discarded bikes were left on the streets.

Since its founding in July 2016, Xiaoming has managed to deploy 430,000 bikes across more than 10 cities, including Guangzhou and Shanghai. The total amount of user deposits reached as high as RMB 800 million.

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