Skip to main content

Ofo ‘scales back’ bike sharing operations in US

Chinese bike sharing company Ofo is scaling back its US operations and has laid off employees from multiple departments. The move, according to a report by Quartz, will allow the company to refocus on markets in a bid to become profitable. The start-up plans to continue operating in US cities such as Seattle, San Diego and New York. According to Quartz, the company is also leaving Australia and Israel and reducing operations in the UK. The company operates yellow bicycles which riders can rent thro
July 24, 2018 Read time: 1 min
Chinese bike sharing company Ofo is scaling back its US operations and has laid off employees from multiple departments. The move, according to a report by %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external Quartz false https://qz.com/1331368/bike-sharing-company-ofo-is-dramatically-scaling-back-in-north-america/?utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Issue:%202018-07-20%20Smart%20Cities%20Dive%20Newsletter%20%5Bissue:16284%5D&amp;utm_term=Smart%20Cities%20Dive false false%>, will allow the company to refocus on markets in a bid to become profitable.


The start-up plans to continue operating in US cities such as Seattle, San Diego and New York.

According to Quartz, the company is also leaving Australia and Israel and reducing operations in the UK.

The company operates yellow bicycles which riders can rent through a mobile app for around £1 per minute or one hour ride, depending on the city.

Ofo was founded in 2014 by students at Beijing’s Peking University and entered the US last year with the intention of offering a transportation option that could cover first- or last-mile trips.

Related Content

  • Finland leads the MaaS debate at London conference
    February 20, 2017
    Finland’s revolutionary attempts to change how public transport is provided, funded and managed will be top of the agenda at a ground-breaking mobility as a service (MaaS) conference in London on 22 and 23 March. The MaaS Market – Concept to Reality conference will feature keynote presentations from Anne Berner, Finland’s forward-thinking Minister of Transport, and Sampo Hietanen, CEO of MaaS Global. MaaS exploits developing technologies to allow populations to plan and buy all-inclusive transportat
  • Registration now open for ITS America 2016
    February 23, 2016
    Registration is now open for ITS America, 12-15 June 12 2016 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. It’s a new event with an exhibition, conferences, papers and demonstrations, where companies, public agencies, academics, engineers, researchers, regulators, lawmakers, app developers, infrastructure security agents, financiers and the media will meet to make new contacts, transfer knowledge and generate new ideas about what is next in a world where transportation is at the centre of the IOT. More
  • Asecap: Road safety is a shared responsibility
    March 23, 2018
    Road safety is a shared responsibility of roads, vehicles and users, according to a key message delivered at Asecap’s Annual Safety Conference, in Brussels. The event provided an opportunity for road stakeholders to discuss the main safety priorities of the new mobility package to be presented by the European Commission (EC) next May. Additionally, the conference found that modern toll roads are the safest roads in Europe. The European Parliament and the EC blessed the memorandum of understanding
  • Intertraffic 2022: less than two weeks to go!
    March 15, 2022
    Make sure you're part of the biggest reunion in the ITS industry for years - why miss out?