In the previous edition of “When will ofo finally go (down)?” , we were at the “you think, I thought, who can confirm” stage.
We have now finally and exhaustively stumbled onto the boss fight, and the boss has now spoken and will indeed be suspending “Chinese bike-sharing company Ofo’s operating licence in Singapore” according to Channel NewsAsia.
The (final) boss being the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in this case.
Ofo Suspension
According to The Straits Tmes, this “comes after ofo missed Wednesday’s deadline to meet LTA’s regulatory requirements which included “reducing its bicycle fleet size to” the stipulated maximum fleet size of 10,000″ and the failure to set up a QR-code parking system, despite previous communication to ofo with ample lead time.
As a result of this suspension, LTA has given ofo till March 13 to remove all of its bicycles from public spaces.
According to ST, ofo had numbered about 70 000 bikes in its fleet last year.
LTA shared too that it “will only lift the suspension if ofo meets all regulatory requirements”, adding that the firm’s licence may be cancelled if it does not show “satisfactory progress” while ST said: “Firms that do not comply with LTA regulations face penalties, including a fine of up to $100,000 for each offence, or the suspension or termination of their licences. Unlicensed operators can be fined up to $10,000 and jailed up to six months, with a further fine of $500 for each day that they continue to operate after conviction.”
ofo’s litany of issues
The fault-lines have been clear for all to see.
In December 2018, ofo CEO Dai Wei shared that the company was facing “immense cash flow pressures and has been “dissolving the company and applying for bankruptcy.”
At the same time, in both Singapore and China, ofo users began to experience road bumps when it came to requesting for refunds.
Shortly after, it appeared that ofo’s office at Shenton Way began to empty out, much like my wallet on Valentine’s Day and news came from ex-ofo employees that they were dumped unceremoniously by the company without notice and compensation.
On top of owing its users un-refunded deposits, news came too that they had owed their vendors/contractors around $700,000.
Now you know why LTA is the final boss, because the signs have been there since November 2018.
Bike-sharing back then and its future
Once billed as the darling of first-mile-last-mile transportation, ofo’s demise eerily mirrors that of another fallen giant, oBike.
Of the few that began in Singapore, only 3 (to the best of my limited knowledge) remains now.
- Mobike
ofo(You know the drill)oBike(You know the drill)- SG Bike
- AnyWheel
Grabcycle(Finished since it was supporting oBike)Qiqi ZhiXiang(Has not been to deploy any bikes in SG yet)Gbikes(License application was unsuccessful)ShareBikeSG(Exited mid-2018)
In what was a yellow-bike dominated industry, MoBike with its orange transport has the largest share of the pie now with a fleet of 25,000 versus the 3,000 of SG Bike and 1,000 of AnyWheel.
From bright yellow to orange, the change in the colour of our streets very much signals the setting sunset of a once-thriving industry just 2 years back.
#RIP #Bikesharing
Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:
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