This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Dockless bike providers Mobike and Ofo will dramatically expand their operations in London and Manchester as the two Chinese companies continue their cut-throat multibillion-dollar battle for global domination.

The expansion plans come despite the decision last week by one rival, GoBee, to abandon European operations after 60% of its bikes were vandalised or destroyed within four months of launch.

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From Monday the bike-sharing schemes will expand into Southwark, south London, with Ofo confident most other boroughs in the capital will join by the end of 2018.

So far Ofo has introduced 1,250 bikes into London but said it is ultimately targeting 150,000 bikes across the city, compared with the 12,000 bikes currently available under the official Santander-sponsored “Boris Bike” scheme.

Meanwhile, Stockport will get the first of 1,000 orange and silver Mobikes rolled out on Monday after the company said its initial scheme in Manchester city centre had been a success.

The expansion represents a turnaround from the early days of the Mobike scheme in Manchester, when damaged and stolen cycles soon littered canals, bins and back gardens.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Chinese mechanic from Ofo among a pile of thousands of damaged bicycles in need of repair. Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The company said 70 of its first 1,000 bikes had disappeared, but undaunted, it is pressing ahead with expansion. Steve Pyer, Mobike’s UK general manager, said: “There was a big spike in vandalism when we first launched, which is sad, but that tailed off at the back end of last year.”

Riders use smartphone apps to unlock bikes on city streets, paying 50p for 30 minutes’ use.

Two Chinese internet firms – Tencent and Alibaba – have provided billions of dollars in financing to Mobike and Ofo respectively, in a rare challenge to Silicon Valley’s dominance in internet startups.



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Since its launch in Shanghai in April 2016, Mobike has since expanded to more than 200 cities worldwide. Ofo, founded by five Peking University students in 2014, said its bikes are used by 32 million cyclists in 250 cities. But there has been continued speculation that despite the intensity of competition, investors may force the two firms to merge into one global player.

Leeds will become the next big city in line for the yellow Ofo bikes, with a launch expected in spring. Ofo introduced 1,000 bikes in Sheffield in January and said the uptake has exceeded expectations. More than 6,000 city residents signed up during the first few weeks of the scheme, with Ofo promising to introduce a further 300 bikes this month.



Sheffield councillor Jack Scott said: “I am delighted with the impact Ofo is having ... We have approved a new wave of bikes to be introduced to the city.”

Mobike and Ofo have overcome early hostility from some councils concerned about bikes clogging pathways and station entrances. Both providers said they will only introduce their bikes into an area once the local council has given permission.

But in other European cities, local authorities are clamping down on unregulated bike-sharing schemes. Last week, Lisbon began removing all bicycles belonging the oBike share scheme, which began appearing on streets in early February.

“Lisbon as a city is very open to these kinds of schemes, but when we start seeing bikes left in the middle of squares or on top of benches in parks, it shows that it’s important this kind of activity is regulated,” Miguel Gaspar, the town councillor for mobility, told Publico newspaper.

The manufacturing logistics behind the explosion in bike schemes is breathtaking. Mobike said its factories in China have already installed production lines to build 50,000 bikes a day. Even when Raleigh was Britain’s biggest maker of bicycles in the late 1940s and early 1950s, its output was about 2,000 bikes a day.