Sharing economy in China operates altogether on a different scale. Nowadays, Chinese are sharing almost everything that has significance in daily life from shared bikes, basketball to umbrella and power-banks.
However, sharing economy also has its fall-outs. Just a few weeks after starting up operations in 11 cities across China, Sharing E Umbrella had lost almost all of its 3,00000 umbrellas.
In yet another development from Shenzhen, a total of 13,615 people will be temporarily banned from using shared bikes due to traffic violations.
According to media reports, out of the 13,615 traffic violations perpetrated by non-motorized vehicles, 3261 involved violations by bicycle riders.
Shenzhen was the first Chinese city to implement rules for rented bikes in December last year. As per stipulated rule, violators are forbidden to use bike rental services for at least one week.
The Shenzhen administration has notified bike-renting companies to deactivate offenders’ user accounts from upcoming week.
Almost half of the violators used bikes from Mobike, Ofo, Bluegogo, and other bike-renting startups. The majority of the offenders were riding Mobike’s bicycles while violating traffic rules.
The primary reason for the punishment are driving non-motorized vehicles in the motorized vehicle lane and occupying lanes for other vehicles. Statistics suggest that majority of violators were men (71.29 per cent) aged between 20-30.
Ofo and Mobike also faced wrath of users in the past. Some media reports surfaced about users throwing bikes in rivers, and damaging them. Despite of operational challenges like lack of parking, security among others, bike rental startups are having a ball in China.
Within a month of Mobike raising $600 million from Tencent, its competitor Ofo secured $700 million round led by Alibaba. Buoyed by success in China, Mobike and Ofo are also contemplating to launch their service in global markets including Singapore and US.
