China’s leading bike-sharing platform Ofo is again into the headlines due to customer’s complaints regarding its new revenue raising strategy. It has been reported that when the users open the Ofo app to unlock a share bike, they have to first watch a five-second video advertisement.
Many app users have got annoyed by this and have socially stated that the videos will be a drain on their mobile data allowance. A similar case happened just a few days ago with Netflix where the people were posting annoying tweets against Netflix promo videos that could neither be skipped not muted.
The mobile applications these days are finding new ways of promoting themselves in every possible way. These insiders were cited by Beijing Youth Daily as saying that Ofo might lose customers because of their new revenue raising strategy.
Ofo said that the company has earlier tried various different advertising strategies. These comprise of displaying advertisements in their app, and on the bikes themselves. These moves have brought in revenues of over 100 million yuan to the company. Ofo also stated that it had achieved profitability in over 100 cities across China.
This step may lead to a loss of a number of users, which may lead Ofo to an even more difficult situation. With a tough competition with other players, this move may not be the right choice. Ofo’s main rival, Mobike, dropped the requirement that new users pay a deposit to use its service. While in the case of Ofo, when users sign up, they are required to provide a 95 yuan deposit ($14).