Without a doubt China’s hottest tech trend of late 2016, early 2017 is bike sharing. Our last report received great feedback from ChCh readers but it’s already hopelessly out of date in just 4 months! Here’s our new version filled with juicy stats:

ANALYSIS: Top 2 reasons given for dissatisfaction with the bike sharing service (previous slide) are directly related to the number of bikes in circulation. The player who can put the most bikes out into circulation the fastest will likely win the war. Traditional methods of user acquisition e.g. online promotion (SEE NEXT SLIDE), discount coupons, billboards are all secondary to the most important factor which is having the bike there in front of you available for use.

Analysis: Price is a less important consideration for users when deciding if/when to use bike sharing. Currently prices are artificially low (often free). In the short term (a least 1 year) gaining new users and building strong usage habits amongst existing users is the most important goal. Fierce competition between market players will also prevent price rises until a stable long term monopoly / oligopoly market emerges.