Mobike offers free rides in July to celebrate 100-day milestone

SINGAPORE — To celebrate its 100-day milestone, bike-sharing company Mobike is giving free rides in July, the company announced on Thursday (July 6).

From now till the end of the month, users will be allowed to ride for free without having to pay the standard rate of 50 cents for every 30 minutes of use. Mobike riders will need to pay a one-time S$49 deposit which will be refunded when they stop using the service completely.

Mobike, the last of three bike-sharing companies to set up shop here, marked its 100 days of operation in the Republic on Thursday by unveiling an improved bike, a tie-up with Mastercard and a series of incentives to combat user negligence.

To encourage users to return stray bikes to any of the 300 Mobike preferred locations, the Chinese firm is offering free ride coupons and discounts in the form of Red Packet and Treasure Box awards.

Saying that he has not seen one of his company’s bikes being abused, Mr Florian Bohnert, head of the firm’s international expansion, added its merit-demerit system of awarding and penalising users has been effective. Its bikes are tracked using the embedded GSP-enabled lock.

Its new fleet of bikes, featuring three-gears, an adjustable seat for comfortable riding and solar-powered headlights, will be introduced soon, and the company has plans to roll out over 10,000 of them over an undisclosed time frame.

By the end of this year, it will also allow in-app payments to be made via Masterpass, Mastercard’s global digital payment solution, as part of a tie-up with the credit card company.

“By combining payment, ticketing and mobile technology, we hope to bring out greater operational efficiency. You should be able to come to a city and assuredly unlock, both literally and figuratively, the travel options that are available to you without having to figure out different payment systems,” said Mr Benjamin Gilbey, Mastercard’s senior vice president of digital payments and labs.

Based on user data over the last 100 days, Mobike said the average distance cycled by local riders is 2.7km, with the longest distance cycled in a single trip being 108km.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of the story, it was stated that Mobike users will be refunded their S$49 deposit at the end of each trip, and the standard rate was S$1 for every 30 minutes of use. These are wrong. The deposit will be refunded upon request when riders stop using the service, and the standard rate is 50 cents for every 30 minutes of use. We are sorry for the errors.