After weeks of rumors, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing announced today it has added bike-sharing service from ofo to its app. DiDi users will have direct access to ofo’s bright yellow bikes in the app. As a major investor of ofo, DiDi has poured a combined hundreds of million USD in three financing round of the […]
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Ofo teams up with largest bicycle producer Fushida
The race is still on in China’s bike-rental sector. Bike-rental startup ofo and the world’s largest bicycle producer Fushida recently entered into a strategic partnership that will see the latter manufacture 10 million bicycles for ofo every year, local media is reporting (in Chinese). Fushida chairman Xin Jiansheng expected the company’s annual production capacity to top 20 […]
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Bike-rental in China takes a tacky new turn with golden bikes
The streets of China are covered with gold…. gold bicycles that is. The new bikes are a product of cooperation of Beijing-based bike sharing company Coolqi (酷骑单车) and Haier, a well-known consumer electronics company from Qingdao. Besides the golden paint accentuated with royal blue details, the biggest novelty offered by the bikes is the onboard […]
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Bike-rental startup ofo lands series D+ backed by Alibaba’s Ant Financial
The funding spree continues in China’s bike-rental sector. Bike-rental startup ofo announced over the weekend that it raised an undisclosed amount in its Series D+ from Alibaba’s financial arm Ant Financial. Under the deal, ofo cooperate with Ant Financial in the fields of e-payment, credit system and globalization process. The announcement came less than two […]
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[Updated] The bike-rental war is creating unsustainable demand for bikes
China’s booming bike-sharing business has been disrupting the country’s traditional bike industry landscape, while also being acclaimed by city travelers for playing its part in cracking the hard nut of the last kilometer of their journey. After receiving multi-billion RMB investments from 30-some institutional investors, major bike-sharing services Mobike, Ofo, and their competitors have been […]
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[Podcast] China Tech Talk 1: An introduction to China’s bike sharing
Editor’s note: We are very happy to announce the China Tech Talk podcast, a colloboration with ChinaChannel. Every week John and Matthew will discuss the latest trends and happenings in China’s exciting technology ecosystem. At TechNode, we continue to explore new and interesting ways of creating content. Be on the lookout for more in the […]
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On April Fool’s Day, one joke gets opposite reactions from China’s bike rental companies
Ah, it’s that time of year again: when the unsuspecting are caught unawares by the unstoppable forces of time. April Fool’s has become a time-honored tradition for those in tech, a time for everyone to flex their humor muscles and devise sometimes silly, sometimes outlandish, and sometimes very believable news stories and announcements. The best […]
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Bike-rental firms confirm in-app balance refundable, but still not easy
Five bike-rental firms made it clear that users can get back their in-app balance, following their statement weeks ago that bike-rental deposits are secure and are totally refundable, local media is reporting. Bike-rental firms including Mobike, ofo, Bluegogo, and UniBike made the statement at a conference hosted in Beijing yesterday by the China Consumers Association […]
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Ofo hits speed bump as internal corruption allegations go public
Ofo, a leader in China’s burgeoning bike-rental market, has found itself embroiled in corruption allegations this week. The new first broke out on Maimai, a real name registered social networking platform for professionals, where one user was asking about working at ofo. However, the answers that followed took an unexpected turn towards internal corruption allegations. […]
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Tier 3 failure shows bike-rental ain’t that easy
Chinese tech media is aflutter this morning after news last night that Kala, an O2O bike-rental company, went out of business after only 19 days of operation. In those 19 days, the company, in cooperation with the Putian government (a Tier 4 city in Fujian province), were only able to recover 157 of the 667 bikes […]
