Mobike
| Mobike
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| legal form | |
| founding | April 2016 |
| Seat |
Shanghai , China , u. a. Branches in Italy , England , Germany |
| Branch | Bike rental |
| Website | mobike.com/de |
Mobike is a Chinese company that operates bike rental systems around the world . In the year after it was founded, the Taiwanese company Foxconn was won over as a donor. In the summer of 2018, Mobike was active in around 200 cities in 15 countries, and since December 2017 also in Berlin as the first German city.
Companies
Foundation and expansion
The company was founded as a start-up in Shanghai in 2016 by journalist Hu Weiwei .
International expansion
Despite strong competition from other rental bike providers in the industrialized countries that have been operating for several years, Mobike bikes quickly spread around the world. In the country of origin there were 4.5 million Mobike bikes in around 80 cities within a very short time . The first non-Asian city in which Mobike started was Manchester : on June 29, 2017, the first 1000 bicycles were distributed in town. That was already the 100th location worldwide. There are now subsidiaries in Milan , Florence , London and another 196 cities (as of the end of February 2018) with eight million bicycles at the time. According to the company's philosophy, close cooperation with the respective city administrations is planned.
The subsidiary Mobike Germany opened in Berlin in December 2017 . It is under the direction of the general manager, the Australian Jimmy Cliff. It works without fixed rental points (called free floating or free float systems ) and initially set up 700 two-wheelers, spread over several inner-city areas of Berlin. This immediately made Mobike the largest provider in the German capital. As of February 2018, more than 3,500 bicycles are available, followed by Lidl bikes . In February, Mobike Germany employed 20 people, by June 2018 there should be 40. These mainly take care of the control of the technical condition of the bicycles, the administration of customer data and, if necessary, implementation. Mobike Germany aims to have a long-term presence in the ten largest German cities. Concrete short-term goals in the summer of 2018 are the distribution of bikes in Cologne and Düsseldorf, after which negotiations will be held with the city administration of Frankfurt am Main. Before the official start in the cities, the company has to set up service teams and rent warehouses for the bikes or their repairs. The system has been in operation in Hanover since late summer 2018.
Financial difficulties and sales
A total of nine million bikes were available to users worldwide in late summer 2018. In its home market, China, despite many imitators, Mobike was able to achieve a market share of 90% together with its competitor Ofo and had received financing of over US $ 600 million from the Chinese Internet giant Tencent ; however, the company lost up to 16 million yuan a day; To blame were a hasty expansion, a price war in the home market and widespread vandalism on the bikes. In April 2018, the company was finally acquired by Meituan-Dianping , an internet service provider. The founder Weiwei, according to her own statements, accompanied the transition for a few months and then left the company on December 22, 2018, which was nevertheless rated as "surprising".
In March 2019, Mobike confirmed that the company would be withdrawing from various countries in Asia and the Pacific region; the presence in Europe and Latin America should be continued. The American magazine TechCrunch therefore suspects that Meiutan's strategy is to focus on the Chinese home market. During the COVID-19 pandemic 2020, Mobike informed its users about the German version of the Mobike app that to protect the health of users and for economic reasons, the Mobikes are only available to a very limited extent for the time being.
Vandalism is a problem for Mobike . According to its own information, the company lost 205,600 bikes worldwide in 2019 due to theft or destruction. For this reason, Mobike has already withdrawn from cities, for example in England from Manchester , Newcastle and Gateshead .
The bikes
First variants
The first in Berlin established bicycles are equipped with aluminum frame with solid rubber tires mounted on 24 it is raised rims. A five-spoke wheel made of a magnesium alloy, which sits on the side of one of the axles, is firmly connected to these.
The usual front fork has been replaced by a slightly sprung “half” fork, the rear wheel is also asymmetrically attached to the axle. A fully encapsulated drive shaft, which is housed in the tube between the bottom bracket and the rear axle, serves as the drive. The rear wheel is braked with a disc brake , the front wheel with a drum brake. A luggage basket for a maximum load of 5 kg, which is either black or orange, is mounted below the handlebars. In some versions there is a hinged cup holder and a rubber pad for small parts in the basket. Mudguards, as they are usually attached over the wheels, are minimalist, roughly hand-long plastic parts attached to the frame parts that protect against splashes in the direction of travel. The height can be adjusted using a quick release system, but this only works when a wheel is unlocked. The service life of the bicycles is given as four to five years, but so far could only be determined in laboratory tests. The bike has no gear shift and is therefore only recommended for short distances. The basic colors of the bicycles are silver for all frame parts and orange-red for the wheels with flat spokes and the distinctive lettering on the front frame part.
In addition to the bicycles with small wheel diameters previously used in Berlin, 26-inch bicycles were also offered from summer 2018. Mobike Germany also wanted to offer e-bikes for hire in summer 2018 . These should primarily appeal to those interested in longer distances (between five and twenty kilometers) and older users.
In May 2019, Stiftung Warentest rated the driving characteristics and comfort of the bikes as "sufficient" (rating 4 out of 5); the safety was classified as "poor" (rating 5 out of 5) due to insufficient braking effect.
Revised versions
Since the beginning of the rental in Berlin, the orange bicycles have appeared in several versions (see upper picture):
- Wheel sizes with 24- and 26-inch,
- Frame colors vary from pure orange to pure orange with silver to pure silver,
- the luggage baskets have been designed better and they are available in the colors orange and silver,
- the disguise of the chains is different,
- since 2019 the frame constructions have been more stable, i. H. the one-sided suspension of the axles was changed in favor of a fork shape.
- some versions have a three- gear shift on the right handle, but the bell is integrated there on the left (with the other versions on the right handle).
Rental system
The one-time registration takes place via app or via the Internet and is activated by means of an SMS. Interested parties can then also borrow and return items via the app. As a basic rule, the bicycles should not be parked on cycle paths, in driveways, courtyards, public parks or multi-storey car parks or in places that could hinder other people. Bicycle parking facilities and clearly visible road crossings are recommended. After topping up, the registered users receive a personal credit, combined with a point account of several hundred points. If he does not adhere to the basic rules of conduct, points will be deducted. If you have less than 100 points, your customer account will be blocked. Marked collection stations or special bicycle parking spaces are planned, even bicycle parking garages, which the borrower should receive points when they are used. The bicycles are activated by scanning a QR code from the lock or the handlebars. The GPS- enabled lock is connected to an internal company network, which means that the condition and location of the bike can be monitored at any time.
The following average costs arise for the users (as of spring 2018): When registering, a one-time payment of 2 euros. In Berlin, 50 or 100 cents are due for 20 minutes, depending on the bike. The specific, personalized rental price is based on the self-selectable amount for a Mobike loan. After registration, the first 30 minutes are free. There are also flat rate options for 30, 90 or 360 days at € 7.90, € 24.90 and € 69.00 respectively. The first 30 minutes are free for each bike model, after that the usual prices apply. However, with this price model, Mobike offers to change the bike within 30 minutes, so that you can ride almost without any additional charges.
According to the company, there were already several thousand registered users in Berlin at the end of February 2018 and “the business model is profitable”.
criticism
Free parking
The fact that Mobike works without fixed rental stations and that the bikes can be parked anywhere in the city is viewed by some critics as questionable, they are calling for "implementable regulations for the orderly parking of bicycles as well as state fees", because parking the bikes at will is actually a special use of public roads. The company shows rules in the app for the correct parking of bicycles, but reported violations can be sanctioned using a points system.
environmental Protection
In 2017, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) awarded Mobike the Champion of the Earth 2017 award, recognizing the company's contribution to “the further development of low-carbon public transport”. This award led the German ZEG bicycle purchasing cooperative to withdraw from the UN Global Compact (UNGC) initiative in December 2017 because it found the uncontrolled spreading of cheap bicycles to be environmentally unfriendly.
privacy
According to the German boss of Mobike, the personal data of the registered prospective tenants are used for trip accounting and internal personalized advertising, but they do not want to sell the data: “A sale of personal data to third parties is not intended”. Among other things, the following are evaluated for entrepreneurial optimization: the length of the routes traveled, the frequency of use, preferred locations. These generalized data are intended to improve traffic planning: which roads are used most often, where are there clear traffic flows? In the long term, this should also help to improve the cycling infrastructure in cities.
The Stiftung Warentest rated the data transmission behavior of the Android app as "very critical", since the phone number and location were transmitted unencrypted.
In December 2018, a Swedish data protection activist published a detailed criticism of the company's data protection principles: Mobike reserves the right to transmit the exact position of users' end devices not only during journeys, but whenever the app is running in the foreground or background. The transfer of data is limited by the privacy policy in any way, the transmission of data to China a DSGVO -Verstoß. The collection and analysis of the data collected by Mobike allows the Chinese government to create detailed behavioral profiles of European citizens. In December 2018, the Berlin commissioner for data protection initiated a review process.
Social scoring
The Mobike credit system , which is used to evaluate user behavior, is also criticized . There may be deductions from this point value assigned to each user. a. due to incorrect parking of bicycles and violations of traffic rules, plus points for reporting violations. If a user's point value drops to zero, the account is blocked. In addition to the user monitoring required for scoring, there is a risk of promoting denunciations.
Web links
- Mobike - berlin.de. In: berlin.de . BerlinOnline Stadtportal GmbH & Co. KG, November 23, 2017, accessed on October 15, 2018 .
- Heimo Fischer: Mobike, Obike, Ofo or Yobike: wheeled cities. In: Spiegel Online . January 5, 2018, accessed October 15, 2018 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Frank Thomas Wenzel: Interview with Mobike boss "You are faster with a bike in Berlin". In: Berliner Zeitung . August 14, 2018, p. 6 , accessed January 25, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Peter Neumann: Mobike boss: Bicycles are the most powerful weapon we have. In: Berliner Zeitung . February 27, 2018, p. 11 , accessed January 25, 2019 .
- ↑ a b Mobike wants to conquer the rental bike market in Berlin at ngin.mobiligty.com, accessed on February 27, 2018.
- ↑ Chinese rental bikes with QR codes to conquer Europe , accessed on September 7, 2018.
- ↑ Rental bike provider Mobike starts in Berlin at www.rbb24, accessed on February 27, 2018.
- ↑ The Economist: Lessons from the fall of China's bike-sharing pioneer , January 24, 2019, accessed January 25, 2019.
- ↑ Bastian Benrath: "Bike sharing is not as easy as we thought". In: faz.net. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 20, 2019, accessed on September 19, 2019 .
- ↑ Techcrunch: Meituan confirms Mobike's retreat from most overseas markets , March 11, 2019 (English).
- ↑ Chinese start-up loses more than 200,000 bicycles in one year. In: stern.de. Stern , January 3, 2020, accessed May 2, 2020 .
- ↑ Rental bike check of three reports from Radio Fritz , accessed on September 7, 2018.
- ↑ a b One wheel, everywhere , test issue 5/2019, page 66ff.
- ↑ a b c Heimo Fischer: Mobike, Obike, Ofo or Yobike: Wheeled cities. In: Spiegel Online . January 5, 2018, accessed October 15, 2018 .
- ↑ A small bike is more difficult to break. Retrieved June 1, 2018 .
- ↑ China's Surveillance & Social Credit system alive & kicking in Berlin ... , accessed in April 2019.
- ↑ Data protection authority examines Chinese bicycle rental company Mobike , accessed in April 2019.
- ↑ Does Mobike secretly transfer user data to China? , Datenschutz-Notizen.de of January 3, 2019.