Mobike Announces Its Entry into Italy
On July 25, Mobike announced its arrival in Italy, the first Mobike bicycles to move into Florence and Milan. Italy is the 4th overseas country that Mobike has entered after Singapore, Britain and Japan. The mayor of Fiorence, Dario Nardella, and mayor of Milan, Beppe Sala, both welcomed Mobike to their cities.
It is reported that Mobike will launch a bike sharing trial operation with several hundred smart bicycles in Florence this week. This will provide them with user experience and user feedback. The initial riding price will be 0.3 euros for every half an hour. At the beginning of August, Mobike will officially launch its operation in Florence and Milan, with a plan of putting out about 4,000 bicycles in each city.
According to the data released by Mobike, up to now, Mobike has more than 6 million smart sharing bicycles in more than 150 cities in 5 countries around the world. The number of registered users exceeds 100 million, providing more than 25 million trips per day. Now each Mobike is equipped with “Beidou + GPS + GLONASS”, a three-mode satellite positioning chip and Internet of things connected together. This generates more than 20TB of traveling data every day.
In June of this year, Mobike announced the completion of a new round of fundraising led out by Tencent, during which more than $600 million dollars was raised. The new strategic and financial investors which the fundraising attracted included BOCOM International, ICBC International, Farallon Capital and other investors; TPG, Sequoia Capital China, Hillhouse Capital and many other existing shareholders continue to add to the current funding round. Co-founder and CEO of Mobilke, Wang Xiaofeng, said at the time that one of the goals of the new round of fundraising was to accelerate the internationalization process of Mobike, and plans to serve 200 cities around the world by the end of 2017.
