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China’s Bike Company Youon Expands to Europe to Cut Competition

1Nov By Gauri SinghNo Comments

Automobile

China’s Bike Company Youon Expands to Europe to Cut Competition

A lesser-known China’s bike company Youon is reportedly expanding to Europe as its rival Ofo has applied the brakes to its global expansion strategy in recent months. The company has formed a joint venture with UK-based bike-sharing startup Cycle.land which will enable Youon to sit back in its headquarters in eastern China while its British partner deploys its bikes and takes care of on-the-ground operation. The fleet of the company’s 1,000 public bikes will start appearing in London next March. This move will make the UK the fourth country in its international expansion after Russia, India, and Malaysia. “User behavior in Europe and North America is very different and it will be reckless for a [Chinese] firm to abruptly set up its own operations overseas,” Sun Naiyue, an analyst at...

24Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

CHINA

China’s Ofo Faces User Complaints Against Revenue Raising Strategy

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 thei...

Ofo To Close Down in India: Fires Majority Staff

10Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments

News

Ofo To Close Down in India: Fires Majority Staff

World’s first station-free bike sharing platform ‘Ofo’ is reportedly closing down its operations in India. The Alibaba-backed Chinese company, therefore, has fired a majority of the staff that was responsible for its India operations. The company was established in the country last year in the month of November. It had spread its business in various cities of India including Chennai, Indore, Ahmedabad, and Pune. However, the company claimed that Ofo has stopped its operations in all the but in Pune, it has tied up with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to support the Pune Cycle Plan. Ofo had promised the employees that they would have a discussion regarding the operational roadmap for the next few years. But, these things never took place and the employees were not even given the ...

Meituan Dianping Acquires Mobike for $ 2.7 Billion

5Apr By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Meituan Dianping Acquires Mobike for $ 2.7 Billion

Meituan Dianping, a Chinese mobile internet company also operating a trading platform and local life information recently acquired Mobike for $2.7 billion. Tencent Holdings support both companies and the deal is likely to increase the competition between the holding company and the Alibaba Group as both companies go toe-to-toe in a fierce competition to maximize their reach on the Chinese market. Meituan announced the deal on Wednesday but did not want to reveal the amount paid for the acquisition. However, two anonymous sources told Reuters that Mobike was bought for $ 2.7 billion. The acquisition will see Meituan and Mobike merge their technology, operations, marketing and consumer service resources, a statement from Meituan affirmed. The mobile internet company also shared that Mo...

Bike Rental Company Raises $866 Million From Alibaba

13Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

CHINA, FUNDING

Bike Rental Company Raises $866 Million From Alibaba

China’s bike rental giant, Ofo announced it raised $866 million investment led by Alibaba Group, with additional partners in Haofeng Group, Tianhe Capital, Ant Financial and Junli Capital. The company is using a combination of debt and equity financing for this round of investment. A statement from the company claimed that this new funding represents a record in the bike-sharing industry. Earlier this month, rumors spread in China reporting Ofo held $280 million funding from Alibaba through chattel mortgage. However, we got no information concerning a relation between the two occurring news reports. "As the global leader in the bike-sharing sector, Ofo has been transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development. Ofo will continue to put our customers fi...