Editor’s note: Rumors are rife in China, especially so in a hotly contested area like transportation and O2O services. This news is unconfirmed and the veracity of Mobike’s financial and operational situation as outlined is unclear. Update 10:02 04 Apr 2018: The purchase has been confirmed by multiple sources. Follow our coverage here. Rumors of […]
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What do you think of Mobike and Ofo expanding to your country? We asked
Chinese bike rental companies Mobike and ofo expanded to more than 30 countries last year. While attending the SeedStars Summit 2018 in Lausane, Switzerland, we asked people from 5 different countries what they think about Chinese bike rental startups’ expansion into their home countries. Recent data from Cheetah shows that China’s active users of bike […]
Mobike, ofo say no to merger despite investor pressures
Despite the rumors and speculation surrounding a possible merger between Mobile and ofo, Mobike co-founder and CEO Davis Wang has made it clear again at TheYearAhead Summit that a “merger is not an option for the company,” local media is reporting. Similarly, ofo founder and CEO Dai Wei also expressed previously that the company would not […]
Mobike lands in Washington D.C., their first US city
Mobike, a major Chinese bike-rental company, has just placed their first batch of bikes in the capital of the United States as part of its ambitious global expansion plan. Closely following its largest rival ofo’s footprint, Mobike chose Washington D.C. as the first city in America to start running its business, whereas ofo just a month ago […]
Global bike rental is about to get even bigger: Cheetah Global report
Cheetah Global has come out with freshly-minted statistics on the state of the bike rental economy in the world. Public bicycles were first started in Europe but have seen their biggest success in the East starting from China’s dockless bike systems ofo and Mobike. According to the global distribution of active users gathered by Cheetah […]
Mobike accelerates European expansion with second stop in Italy
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 […]
Ofo and Mobike aren’t doing so well in Singapore
China’s fast-expanding bike-sharing startups ofo and Mobike both expanded to Singapore earlier this year, but it turns out that the local bike rental operator oBike is winning the local game. Ofo officially launched its service in Singapore this February and saw a surge in the number of users, making it the fifth most downloaded app […]
ofo announces $866 million funding round led by Alibaba amid cash strain rumors
ofo raises $866 million in latest funding round led by Alibaba
Mobike vs ofo: The race for the world’s bike rental market
It is almost two years since Mobike co-founder Hu Weiwei put around 50 bicycles on the streets of Shanghai and drove away. Ofo had a similar beginning, spreading out shared bikes on Beijing’s university campuses. This is how China’s dockless bike rental economy was born—from moves that could easily be branded as crazy. Today, bikes […]
Mobike co-founder: “Profit is not the most important goal for us for now”
At the Summer Davos Forum in Dalian, Hu Weiwei, co-founder and president of Mobike, took to the stage (in Chinese), dispelling rumors of a merger with ofo and explaining that they are not yet seeking profitability. Consolidation in the bike rental industry Hu Weiwei said that the biggest beneficiaries of the Didi and Uber war were […]