INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Chinese bike-sharing company Ofo is entering a new phase
After a period of aggressive growth, the company is looking back at its international markets and focusing on the most promising ones.A
couple of weeks ago, the company issued a press release highlighting some of the priorities outside of China
As part of this move, Ofo co-founder and CEO Dai Wei is going to be directly in charge of international markets.&It a new strategical phase
on the international front,& Ofo France General Manager and Head of EMEA Laurent Kennel told me
&The company wants to focus on the most mature and promising markets.&So it means that Ofo will stop altogether in some countries, such as
Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, India and Israel.At the same time, there are some markets that work quite well
In particular, the press release highlights Singapore, the U.S., the U.K., France and Italy
But even if you look at a more granular level, Ofo is going to focus on some specific cities in particular going forward.As Quartz and
Forbes highlighted, Ofo hasn&t been a massive success in smaller American cities
&In the U.S., some markets work better than others, and they&re going to focus on that,& Kennel said
Instead of operating in dozens of American cities, the company is going to scale back and focus on the most important ones.In France, Ofo
has only been available in Paris for instance
Numbers are encouraging as the company handles 5,000 to 10,000 rides a day with 2,500 bikes.&[In Paris,] We crossed an important milestone
to prove that our business model is sustainable,& Kennel said
&Our revenue covers all our operational and maintenance costs.& That doesn&t include occasional investments to purchase new bikes.Overall,
Kennel was quite optimistic about those remaining markets
By focusing on a limited number of cities, the company can invest properly on each of those markets
In Europe, Ofo is going to focus on the U.K., France and Italy.Just like in the U.S., Ofo is also reducing the number of cities in the U.K
The company recently shut down its service in Norwich and Sheffield
In Italy, there was an internal reorganization and the company stopped operating in the mid-sized city of Varese.Following Mobike
acquisition by Meituan, Mobike recently announced that it would stop requiring deposits in China
Ofo still asks for a refundable deposit when you sign up in China, but not in Europe.Mobike deep pockets increase the pressure on Ofo
Ofo needs to find a sustainable business model to become a viable independent company in the long term
&It has an impact on international markets, but also on the internal organization in China,& Kennel said.Ofo doesn&t want to comment on the
situation market-by-market
So it hard to know for sure where Ofo still operates and where it plans to scale back
On Ofo website, you can find a map with all the markets where it claims to operate
I looked at this map, listed the 21 countries and tried to find out what happening at a local level.This isn&t a perfect list, but it gives
a good overview of what happening at the company.Still operating normally as far as I know:ChinaFrance (Paris)JapanMalaysiaPortugal (small
operation)SingaporeThailandScaling back operations:Italy: internal reorganization, shut down in Varese to focus on MilanSpain: available in
a handful of cities (Madrid, Valencia, Marbella, Granada) but recently scaled back in Madrid with fewer bikes and a smaller area of
serviceUnited Kingdom: focusing on London (and potentially Cambridge and Oxford) while shutting down operations in Norwich and
SheffieldUnited States: scaling back to some key cities, such as New York, Seattle and San DiegoShutting down:AustraliaAustriaCzech
RepublicGermanyIndiaIsraelNetherlands: dockless bikes are temporarily bannedUnclear:Hungary: service is unavailable in the appKazakhstan:
service is unavailable in the appRussia: service is unavailable in the app
