ofo is a Beijing-based bicycle sharing company founded in 2014. It operates over 10 million yellow-colored bicycles in 250 cities and 20 countries, as of 2017. The dockless ofo system uses a smartphone app to unlock bicycles, charging an hourly rate for use. As of 2017, the company is valued at $3 billion and has over 62.7 million monthly active users.
Video Ofo (bike sharing)
History
The company was founded in 2014 by five members of the Peking University cycling club as a project that initially focused on bicycle tourism before deciding on bicycle sharing. It was named "ofo" (pronounced "oh-foh") due to the word's resemblance to a cyclist on a bicycle. ofo was launched in June 2015 in Beijing, gaining 20,000 users and 2,000 bicycles by October with investment funding from a Peking University alumnus. In 2016, ofo expanded to other cities in China, claiming a fleet of 85,000 bicycles by the end of the year. The company raised $130 million in funding from tech firms Xiaomi and Didi Chuxing in September 2016, allowing it to expand outside China. A Series D funding round in February 2017, led by Didi Chuxing and Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies, raised $450 million for ofo and valued the company at $1 billion.
ofo began expanding outside China in 2017, with launches in Singapore in February 2017; Cambridge, United Kingdom in April; Seattle, United States in August; and Sydney, Australia in October.
In July 2017, ofo announced $700 million of additional funding in a round led by Alibaba, Hony Capital and Citic PE.
In October 2017, ofo launched in its third UK city, Norwich, and in January 2018 the company launched in Sheffield deploying 1,000 bikes in the city.
The founder has stated that he is more interested in expansion than profits, as the business scales up worldwide. The third-largest bikeshare company in China, Bluegogo, has already gone out of business and more shakeups will occur.
Maps Ofo (bike sharing)
Usage
Customers use the company's mobile app on their phones to locate nearby bicycles. Each bike has a code on the frame, which the customer scans to unlock the bike. They use the bike and when they are finished, they leave it on a public bike rack and lock it. The bicycles use NarrowBand IOT to power the locks, developed by Huawei and China Telecom.
Business
ofo has connected more than 7.5 million shared bicycles and provided almost 500 million shared bicycle rides since its inception in June 2015. It also provided convenient travel services for more than 30 million users in 46 cities around the world. The application has booked more than 100 million rides in 2017. The top companies from Singapore are in talks with ofo for employees travel offerings.
ofo has cooperated with Alipay, China's largest online payment platform..
While other dockless bike sharing companies, including ReddyBike and Obike have raised the ire of local communities, including Melbourne, Australia, because of a clutter of bikes parked anywhere it is legal to do so, ofo guides users to park their bikes in "preferred parking zones" via its app. Bike clutter has been so extreme that some cities in China have reached "peak bike" capacity, and have begun regulating the number of bikes that may be deployed.
Locations
ofo bikes are located in the following cities:
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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