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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Ofo signs partnership with Huawei and China Telecom, finally becoming a technology company
Yesterday, Ofo has announced a partnership deal (in Chinese) with China Telecom (中国电信) and Huawei. The partnership will see China Telecom providing wireless data access, Huawei providing NB-IoT chips (PDF), and Ofo providing the bikes. The announcement emphasized a big pain point for the company: their technology. At this point, it’s fairly clear that Mobike and Ofo […]
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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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10 bikes in 16 minutes: Bike-rental race revives flagging industry
Editor’s note: This was originally a two part report by Li Siyi and Jiang Xiaochuan for Tencent Finance. It has been translated and further edited for clarity and style by Linda Lew. In winning the bike-rental “arms race,” the number of bikes on the street has become the critical factor. China’s largest bicycle manufacturing hub has […]
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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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Shanghai mulling bike-rental regulations
Shanghai is mulling rules to regulate the sizzling yet reckless development of the city’s bike-rental sector, local media is reporting (in Chinese). The new rules, expected to be introduced in May and come into effect in June or July this year, are the latest government efforts to deal with the growing problems emerging with the bike-rental […]
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How ofo is bringing China’s latest export to the rest of the world
Ofo, China’s latest bike-rental unicorn that Apple CEO Tim Cook paid his tribute to during China visit, is looking beyond the borders of the middle kingdom. “The act of bike-sharing could someday become a lingua franca, connecting people around the world,” said Dai Wei last week at Boao Forum for Asia. The company’s bold global […]
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The saga of the “bike-rental company that wasn’t” continues
Kala Danche (卡拉单车) is back in business. As you may recall, last week we reported that the company had lost over 75% of their bicycles in less than 20 days of operation. Because of that, their only investor made a quick exit, taking all the user deposits with him and triggering a cascade of questions […]
