Practice: Vandalised Cycles

practice: Theoretically, this means a bike could pay for itself in 13 hours, according to The Guardian. In practice there are other substantial costs, such as relocation, servicing and replacing vandalised cycles. The orange-wheeled cycles can be rented out for 1 for every 20 minutes, after being churned out by the company's own Chinese factories at a cost of between 40 and 200 a bike a small fraction of its rivals' manufacturing costs, according to Mobike's former UK general manager Steve Pyer. But those initial unit economics have made Mobike such an attractive business prospect that it has raised close to 1bn 780m in venture capital. As with many tech businesses, conventional wisdom among investors is that dockless cycle hire is a winner-takes-all market consumers gravitate towards the company with the most bikes and the cheapest prices, giving it the scale required to build more bikes and offer cheaper prices still, creating a virtuous cycle that eventually locks out competitors for good. Similar financial backing has been given to Mobike's rival Ofo, which is also now spreading worldwide. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.