(Chinese Version)

To some degree, it’s like a race towards non-profitability. As of April 2017, RMB 9 to 10 billion financing has been raised in the Chinese bike sharing industry.

More specifically, Mobike and ofo accounted for 85 per cent and raised in total RMB 8 billion. Among 45 major Chinese bike-sharing startups, 55 per cent are established in 2016 and 12 startups have successfully raised external financing. Except for Mobike and ofo, other bike sharing startups are all at the primary stage in terms of financing.

It is worth noticing that six bike sharing startups have government or public institution backgrounds. In addition, shared bikes are often launched in six major cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Tianjin. Most startups' return on investment is negative.

According to TMTPOst TMTBase Global Venture Capital Investment Database, RMB 9 to 10 billion financing has been raised in the Chinese bike sharing industry as of April 2017.

Besides, based on Checkzeit’s estimates, market scale of the Chinese bike-sharing market could reach RMB 90 to 100 billion by 2020. However, due to various reasons, including manufacturing cost, theft, maintenance, improvement, market promotion, corporate operation cost, subsidy for signups, three-year discarded cycle and policy risk, most bike-sharing startups’ return on investment is negative. Therefore, there remains huge challenge for them to find an appropriate and profitable business model.

To some degree, this is almost like a race to non-profitability.

Based on TMTPost’s TMTBase, TMTPost Pro officially releases this heavyweight and comprehensive report over the Chinese bike-sharing industry after two months of research and survey.

Over 45 Chinese bike sharing startups are included in this report and divided into three categories based on their development potential and investment value.

The following is a list of all 45 Chinese bike-sharing startups:

It is our attempt to the describe the status quo of the Chinese bike sharing ecosystem through various analytical methods, make tentative predictions over the future development trend and model, and help investors as well as entrepreneurs better understand the Chinese bike-sharing market.

As of April 2017, over RMB 9 to 10 billion has been raised in the Chinese bike sharing industry. More specifically, Mobike and ofo accounted for 85 per cent and raised in total RMB 8 billion. Among 45 major Chinese bike sharing startups, 12 startups have successfully raised external financing. In other words, 26.67 per cent of bike-sharing startups have been able to raise external financing.

It is worth noticing that six bike sharing startups have government or public institution backgrounds, including Hellobike, Funbike, ZX Bike, CCbike, Dingda Bike, Dragon City Bike, etc.

Among 45 major Chinese bike-sharing startups, 25 (accounting for 55 per cent) are established in 2016. Among these 25 newly-established startups, 10 (accounting for 40 per cent) have raised external financing.
In our research, we found that it was pretty hard to search for the product type, financing status, operation status, service type, etc. of some bike-sharing startups, let alone finding their bikes on the streets. Indeed, many startups are merely being speculative about the bike sharing business.

Six major battlegrounds for Chinese bike sharing startups include: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Tianjin. In fact, first and second-tier cities constitute the main battleground for these startups. Drive by huge capital support, the Chinese bike sharing industry went through various rounds of financing, bike manufacturing, launching and expansion during the past year. From the end of 2016 to the first three months of 2017, the Chinese bike-sharing market went through the most savage competition over market share.

In this period, all major bike sharing platforms began to expand their business. Take Mobike for an example, after accumulating good reputation in first-tier cities, it began to launch bikes in second and third-tier cities. In February, Mobike launched bikes in as many as nine cities, including Fuzhou, Changsha, Tianjin, Hefei, Shantou, Haikou, Xi’an, Nanning, Nanchang, etc. On March 2nd, Mobike officially entered Singapore.

This also applies to another Chinese bike sharing giant ofo. Since 2017, it has rapidly entered one city after another, including Chengdu, Xiamen, Kunming, Changsha, Wuhan, Shijiazhuang, Tianjin, etc. In fact, ofo is the first Chinese bike-sharing startup that entered overseas market. At present, it has already launched bikes in Singapore, London and San Francisco and ranked the first in terms of penetration rate.

This 47-page report is divided into five parts to describe the status quo of the Chinese bike sharing ecosystem and make tentative predictions over the future development trend and model. It is our wish that we can help investors as well as entrepreneurs better understand the Chinese bike-sharing market and provide an efficient, professional and clear-minded guide and analysis over the market.

1. The Early-Stage Chinese Bike Sharing Industry Driven by Capital Forces
1.1 Thee Categories of Chinese Bike-Sharing Startups
1.2 Development History and Status Quo of the Chinese Bike-Sharing Industry
2. Operation Conditions and Product Experience Differentiation
2.1 Operation Conditions of the Chinese Bike-Sharing Industry
2.2 Product Experience Differentiation
3. Speculation and Risk in the Chinese Bike-Sharing Industry
3.1 Speculation
3.2 Risk
4. Subsidy and Promotional Strategy
4.1 Free Ride
4.2 Deposit Waiving
5. Summarizing Current Business Models and Future Development Potential
5.1 Current Business Models
5.2 Future Development Potential

For more details, please subscribe to the complete report through the following two ways:

1. TMTPost Pro subscribers: Please open the webpage http://www.tmtpost.com/report/2592658 in your browser and subscribe for the complete report at RMB 19.9, an exclusive price for TMTPost Pro users.

2. Ordinary users: Please open the webpage http://www.tmtpost.com/report/2592658 in your browser and subscribe for the complete report at RMB 699.

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[The article is published and edited with authorization from the author @TMTPost Checkzeit, please note source and hyperlink when reproduce.]

Translated by Levin Feng (Senior Translator at PAGE TO PAGE), working for TMTpost.