滴滴发内部员工信：宣布整合升级成立两轮车事业部 – Tencent News
What happened: Didi has formed a two-wheeler business group according to an internal letter released late Monday, a person close to the company confirmed with TechNode on Tuesday. The company is ramping up efforts to compete for China’s 300 million motorists with the new group which combines its bike-rental business unit and another team running a platform named Jietu for motor scooter rentals.
Why it’s important: Chinese mobility giants are expanding their businesses from offering ride-hailing services to serving users with two-wheelers for short rides, hoping to diversify revenues. Ant Financial-backed Hellobike, also known as Hello TransTech, is setting up a nationwide battery exchange and charging network for electric bikes and scooters in a RMB 1 billion ($145 million) partnership with the world largest battery maker, CATL. On average, there are 700 million e-bike rides each day in China, triple that of shared bikes, Yang Lei, CEO of Hellobike said at a public event last week. China had more than 250 million electric motor scooters on the streets as of late 2018, and that number is expected to increase to 400 million by 2050, reported China News citing figures from an industry association.