Hellobike plans to lead China’s two-wheeler transport market as bike-sharing rivals struggle

Shanghai-based firm will offer a range of two-wheeler options, including bicycles as well as electric bikes and scooters

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Chinese start-up Hellobike is ready to leave behind the brutal bike-sharing wars in China. Photo: Facebook

Published: 5:00am, 14 Jul 2019Updated: 10:24am, 15 Jul 2019

China’s bike-sharing craze may have cooled considerably, but Hellobike has no plans of letting up as its competitors struggle.

The Shanghai-based start-up, whose fleet of bicycles sport a blue-and-white livery, became one of the biggest bike-sharing services provider in the country by focusing on smaller cities. In contrast, market leaders Mobike and Ofo battled in larger cities like Beijing and pursued international expansion.

While its two rivals have since beat a hasty retreat from overseas markets and laboured with the wide-scale contraction in their industry, Hellobike’s position in China could grow stronger as it plans to dominate the market segment for two-wheeler transport services, which include traditional bicycles as well as electric bikes and scooters.

“An average Chinese person uses many different types of transportation, depending on where he’s going,” said Hellobike chief financial officer Fischer Chen in an interview. “We want to offer different two-wheeler methods of transportation to better serve their needs.”

Fischer Chen, chief financial officer at Hellobike, says the two-wheeler transport market has been widely ignored in China. Photo: Twitter

That strategy shows how Hellobike will leave behind the brutal bike-sharing wars in China, which saw the top two players Ofo and Mobike spend billions to stay in the game amid cutthroat pricing and a government crackdown on bikes clogging up streets.

Bike-sharing took off in China in late 2016 with dozens of start-ups deploying millions of bicycles on city pavements, funded by billions of dollars in venture capital money. This market growth, however, cooled down as dozens of Chinese cities – including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen – barred operators from putting more new bikes on the streets, which led to a swift consolidation.

The scaled down operations of its bike-sharing rivals have opened the opportunity for Hellobike to expand in the larger, first-tier cities. It is now operating in Beijing and Shanghai, and recently entered the southern city of Guangzhou. The start-up has plans to enter Shenzhen next.