Didi Will Have Their Own Bike Rental Unit After Bluegogo Purchase: Sources

Masha Borak | Jan 9, 2018 11:30 am | 2 comments | 1500 reads

This post comes courtesy of our content partners at TechNode.

Details have been released on the Didi Chuxing and Bluegogo tie-up. According to sources quoted by Pingwest (in Chinese), negotiations between the two mobility firms have been completed but Didi will only take over a part of Bluegogo’s business. Didi plans to buy up Bluegogo’s bicycles as a part of its quest to enter the bike rental market. Didi is already the largest shareholder of Ofo.

The ride-hailing firm will inject Bluegogo with cash to pay out late wages for staff. However, when it comes to users’ deposits, Didi will not pay them out directly. Instead, it plans to settle the matter by exchanging them into coupons for rides with Didi. As for supplier arrears, the payments will be left to Bluegogo’s team.

According to industry rumors, Didi plans to fully take over Bluegogo after the latter has paid out its dues to suppliers and staff, and the deposit issue has been settled.

Despite the mess created by Blugogo’s implosion, its business is still valuable, according to Pingwest. Most of the major cities in China have restricted the number of shared bikes after bikes started pilling up on public roads as companies competed for the market. Bike rental operators without licenses are now restricted by the local government. Bluegogo has a license to operate in every city except Shanghai.

Didi’s foray into bike rental makes sense for the company since bicycles are the biggest competition for ride-hailing when it comes to shorter trips. This is why Didi has made hefty investments into Ofo beginning with September 2016. On the other hand, Mobike has made similar moves by launching its own electric car rental platform.

Bluegogo once ranked sixth among the top 10 bike rental startup list by Cheetah big data. Since June, the company has been in trouble with its overseas expansion to the US halted by city authorities and its planned B Series financing round never materializing. In November 2017, Bluegogo’s founder Li Gang announced that the company has reached a strategic cooperation with Guangzhou-based Green Bike-Transit (拜客出行) which was fully authorized to operate its bikes.

Photo: news.youth.cn

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LysanderWrites's picture LysanderWrites Submitted by Guest on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 12:40

If Didi can self-police the number of bikes it has out on the streets, they will already have one up on the competition. Ever since I read that interview where the Mobike guy states that they use software to determine how many bikes go where I go through this odd bout of rage when I see a mass pile of the things. They can't continue to pretend like they cease being their company property and thus their problem once the bikes are 'released into the wild'.

Pity the man too dense for satire.

All accents are equal, except some accents are more equal than others.

tomarnstein's picture tomarnstein Submitted by Guest on Tue, 01/09/2018 - 11:54

Didi this morning released an official statement regarding their new app, which will integrate a number of share-bike services as well as their own soon-to-be-revealed share-bike platform. The full statement is as follows:

Didi Chuxing announced today that it will soon launch a comprehensive bike-sharing platform within its APP, which will integrate Ofo, Bluegogo, and other potential bike-sharing partners, as well as DiDi’s upcoming own-branded bike-sharing service. DiDi will also introduce deposit-free arrangements to support a better user experience.

Meanwhile, DiDi today officially reached an agreement with Bluegogo on cooperation arrangements on the latter’s bike-sharing business. Users will be able to use Bluegogo bike through DiDi’s APP with no deposit required.

Under the cooperation arrangements, the brand name, deposits, debts and other related properties are retained by Bluegogo. Meanwhile, Users will have the option to convert Bluegogo deposits, privileges, and app top-up values into DiDi bike and car ride coupons of equivalent value. Users may also choose to communicate with Bluegogo for other alternatives.

Since its launch, Bluegogo has won popularity with its smooth riding experience which these new arrangements are designed to continue. DiDi looks forward to working with more of our partners to support the sustainable growth of ride-sharing industry and to create a better and richer mobility experience.

Managing Editor, the Beijinger

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