The rise of shared bikes in India: If the east doesn’t shine, the west shines? | guru jp slot, cara menipu mesin slot, 88idr slot

In 2015, as the eye-catching little yellow bikes appeared on the campus of Peking University, the concept of shared bicycles quickly became popular. Players emerged one after another, and huge investments continued to pour in. It became known as the New Four Great Inventions along with high-speed rail, mobile payment, and online shopping.

The craze goes as quickly as it comes. This year, shared bicycles have entered a cold winter.

In April, Mobike committed to Meituan; ofo, a small yellow car, was also losing ground and faced many crises: Overseas business shrank across the board, and a variety of radical monetization methods were launched: public accounts pushed advertisements, tied users' deposits to financial products, and repeatedly delayed the deposit return deadline.

Bike sharing, which cost a lot of money last year, has gone out of business in the blink of an eye.

Bike sharing encounters obstacles when going overseas. Infrastructure and policy regulations are two major obstacles that cannot be ignored. Apart from China, it is difficult to find a market large enough in the world to support the profit model of shared bicycles.

But Indian entrepreneurs seem to have different ideas. Since 2017, shared bicycle companies have appeared one after another in the past ten years and have successively received financing.

Bengaluru-based Yulu raised funds from investors such as Blume Ventures and also received support from Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and former Google Vice President Amit Singhal; another company, Bounce, received a total of US$15.2 million in funding from investors such as Sequoia India; Gurgaon-based Mobycy also raised US$500,000 in seed funding in December last year.

India’s bike-sharing market is booming.

Financing boom

Amit Gupta is the co-founder of Inmobi, India’s first unicorn. After ten years of entrepreneurship and holding a president-level position, he chose to quit and found another company, Yulu Bicycles.

Bright blue Yulu bicycles can be seen everywhere near Bangalore Metro Station and the business CBD. Amit told

Zhixiang.com

The purpose of sharing bicycles is to "indirectly reduce pollution". He was born and raised in Kanpur, a small town in northern India. In June this year, it was labeled "the most polluted city in the world" by the World Health Organization. When talking about his hometown, he seemed emotional.

Yulu bikes only charge 10 rupees (about one yuan) for the first half hour, and an additional 5 rupees for every half hour thereafter. Users download the Yulu app and scan the QR code to drive. After finishing the ride, they need to park the car in the parking area closest to the destination.

Industry insiders estimate that India’s shared bicycle market currently reaches US$1.2 billion. In addition to Yulu, the major players include Pedl, Mobycy, Bounce, owned by the car-sharing company Zoomca, and Mobike from China.

“This industry is very promising and profitable.Figure, the success of Ola and Uber proves that transportation and mobile phones can develop simultaneously. "Sajith Pai, an investor at Blume Ventures, told Zhixiang.

The latest player to enter the game is Bounce, which started out as a scooter sharing company. Ofo exited the Indian market in June this year, and Bounce recently announced the acquisition of its assets in India. Prior to the acquisition, Bounce had 500 scooters in Bengaluru.

“The last mile of transportation from bus or metro stations to offices and homes is a huge headache and no tricycle or taxi is willing to cover such a short distance. "Bounce co-founder Vivekananda HR told TheZhixiang.

“The bicycles we acquired from ofo will also join the pilot. "He said that within 45 to 60 days, Bounce's application will support scanning QR codes to use bicycles.

What Indian entrepreneurs inherited from Chinese companies was not only the legacy of failure, but also the prescient lessons of operation and management.

In Pune and Bangalore, the little blue Yulu car and the little green Pedl car can be seen everywhere. Initially, users could park anywhere, even in the middle of the road, causing traffic chaos. Yulu had no choice but to send a team to move the bike and park it in a suitable place.

As a result, the cost was too high to be sustainable. Yulu learned its lesson and began to cooperate with Pedl and the local government to plan designated parking areas. In Bengaluru, there are now 500 such parking zones, and the total in all four cities is over 1,000.

Tangled user experience

But there are also problems that cannot be solved by "inheritance", such as technical and operational errors.

In India, the user experience of shared bikes still needs to be improved. Through personal experience and communication with other users, Zhixiang reporters found that brake failure, smart lock failure, tire leaks, etc. are not uncommon, and the parking area is not dense enough. Sometimes users even need to walk one kilometer to their destination after locking the car.

Vivek Kumar is a 22-year-old software engineer who recently moved to Bangalore from Delhi. When he first arrived in Bangalore, he had been riding a shared bicycle throughout the city to attend interviews.

On the way to an interview, he found that the chain of his bicycle was broken, which was very embarrassing: he had to park the car in a designated parking area first, otherwise the software would keep charging.

“I had to push the car to the Pedl parking lot 500 meters away and spent a lot of time locking the broken car. "Kumar told Zhixiang.

But in fact, Yulu and Pedl also have dedicated personnel to maintain their bicycles every four days to keep the bicycles in good operating condition. But Amit said that when the company enters a region, the maintenance situation will be less stable “because the local business is not completely stable yet. ”

"In those older areas you will find our bikes in good condition and most are in good conditionrun. Recently, we have deployed near Electronic City, where a number of large IT companies such as Infosys, Wipro, etc. are gathered. It takes us four to six weeks to complete the layout. "Amit said.

But compared to China, India's transportation infrastructure is generally backward, which also lays a hidden secret for shared bicycles.

In India, few cities have set up bicycle lanes; unlike China, where cycling has developed into a healthy and avant-garde lifestyle, bicycles in India are often regarded as a commuting method for the poor.

“The reason why we entered the bike-sharing industry is because we want to become a multi-channel travel platform. Urban transportation has always been a challenge faced by governments and citizens alike, and we hope to solve this problem on a large scale and help improve infrastructure construction. " said Rakshak N, head of Pedl's operational growth department.

According to Gupta, Yulu has 6,000 bikes in four cities, while Rakshak said Pedl has 15,000 bikes in eight cities. Recently, Yulu landed in Mumbai and Bhubaneswar. Both companies average between four and five uses per bike per day.

New model of government-enterprise cooperation

The rapid rise of shared bicycles in China is driven entirely by startups and capital. The government only proposed targeted regulations after the shared bicycle industry fully blossomed.

Indiscriminate parking of shared bicycles blocks traffic, and scrapped bicycles affect the city's appearance and pollute the environment This has aroused dissatisfaction among citizens. Many cities have successively issued "no investment orders" in an attempt to limit the endless growth of shared bicycles. But in India, the government is one of the driving forces behind it.

On November 26, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik unveiled MO bikes to encourage city residents to use shared bikes in Bhubaneswar. The Odisha government has partnered with Yulu, Yaana Ventures and Hexi Capital to deploy a total of 2,000 bicycles.

The scheme is part of the Public Bike Sharing (PBS) scheme launched last year in cities such as Mysore, Pune and Chandigarh, which works on infrastructure including GPS-enabled docking stations and cycle lanes.

Several investors told Zhixiang.com that once the effects of government incentives slow down, factors such as infrastructure, bicycle conditions, parking areas and income models will determine these entrepreneurial companies.The fate of the company.

Amit has visited China countless times in the past ten years. He said that although many Chinese cities have dedicated bicycle lanes, bicycles were not a popular mode of travel before the emergence of ofo and Mobike.

"In India, road conditions are a threat, but not an obstacle. There is no doubt that we certainly hope to have improved infrastructure, but we do not want it to be an excuse to stand still, and the government will start improving infrastructure after seeing the actual demand." Amit said.

Rakshak and Amit also said that they will continue to cooperate with local government agencies to make the PBS system truly a seamless transportation tool.

"Local government agencies are actively asking us about user feedback, user base and other issues. Although the penetration rate is already high, it has not reached the level expected by the company or the government. The government also wants to improve the infrastructure, but considering the rampant bureaucracy and delay in India, this still takes time." Rakshak said.

This is true. The PBS project in Karnataka is named after the bicycle ringtone "Trin Trin", but the launch of this shared bicycle service has been delayed in Bengaluru because the original plan of 125 kilometers of bicycle lanes has been shelved due to funding issues.

"I think as a means of transportation, bicycles are not suitable for distances of more than 500 kilometers. It is okay in Bangalore, which has the most pleasant climate in the country. But if a place like Mumbai or Delhi is either too cold or too hot, it is difficult for you to ride for more than 15 minutes." Rahul Chowdhri of Stellaris Venture Partners told Zhixiang.com. Therefore, Stellaris chose to invest in the shared scooter company Vogo.

Bounce co-founder Vivekananda also expressed similar concerns.

“At the end of the day, it may be different in different cities. But only time will tell how big we can be in this business, (but) we still think the market space for scooters will be larger,” he said.

In addition to cooperating with local governments to build "smart cities", many shared bike companies also provide services in cities with many tourists, such as Varanasi.

Swinging profit model

The failure of shared bicycles in China is partly due to the fact that independently operated bicycle companies failed to come up with a strong enough profit model.

Bicycle sharing is an asset-heavy business. The price of each bicycle of Yulu and Pedl is as high as 10,000 rupees(about 1000 yuan)and 13,000(about 1300 yuan) respectively. Yulu currently has 10,000 bikes(6,000 to be launched), while Pedl has 15,000.

Bicycle damage is also a big problem. "Generally speaking, when we land newThe city will provide used cars first so that even if they are damaged, you won’t lose too much money. This is a business strategy. "Amit revealed.

But this is still not enough to support a viable profit model, and the founders are still groping.

“The challenge is that we cannot borrow against these assets. This is a capital-intensive business. If you think of Pedl as an independent business, we may be unable to make ends meet for a period of time. But we are a multi-channel service company, and we hope to promote our other businesses to users. "Rakshak said.

"After that we will promote our other products such as self-driving cars and Zap membership program to Pedl users. "Rakshak said.

This is exactly the same as Meituan’s plan to acquire Mobike. Because of Mobike’s huge offline traffic advantage, Meituan is willing to bear its losses to divert traffic to core businesses such as food delivery and hotels. Meituan’s IPO documents show that Mobike’s deficit reached 480 million yuan in April alone.

Can Indian startups find another way?

Amit is full of confidence. He believes that advertising can become a stable source of income, and relevant plans are already being discussed intensively.

“We plan to place ads on the bike body, mobile app and parking area at the same time. "Amit said. He said that Yulu is already negotiating with advertisers. Once the user base reaches a certain scale, Yulu may start advertising monetization in the next fiscal year.

“The value of last-mile transportation solutions is immeasurable, and time will tell how we make money. ” he added.

[Source: Zhixiang.com Author: Du Zhanyu Avanish]