Briefing: Uber is coming back to China to make scooters

Uber Is Back in China: But for Making Bikes, Not Ride-Hailing —Bloomberg

What happened: After selling its ride-hailing operations to Didi in 2016, Uber is coming back to China but not to compete for the market again. The company is ordering bikes and scooters for its bike-rental business back in the US. Uber has no plans to bring the scheme to China but it is considering other Asian countries.

Why it’s important: After a period in which ride-hailing companies were investing in bike-rental (Didi into ofo, Grab into Singapore’s failed platform oBike), integrating mobility services is all the rage. Didi kicked off the trend by taking over troubled bike-rental platform Bluegogo in January. Uber bought electric bike-rental platform Jump in April, around the same time that Didi bought its second service Mobike. Indian Ola started its own bike-rental service back in December 2017. Looking forward, we are likely to see more mobility services added to one single platform.