Never mind the bike-sharing fiascos – China's sharing economy is still steaming ahead

China is betting on the sharing economy to drive its shift into a service-based economy and a new era of growth

2018 was a tough year for a fair number of Chinese startups in the sharing-economy sector, especially those in bike- and car-sharing.

Last year on May 16, the Transportation Ministry ordered bike- and car-sharing companies to refund users their deposits from June 1, with a respective two- and 15-working-day deadline – dealing an extra blow to those already grappling with a cash crunch.

By then, there were nearly 16m Ofo users waiting to get back their deposits of either RMB 99 or 199. Another bike-sharing startup, Xiaoming Bike, which filed for bankruptcy in July last year, also confirmed this year that it still owed over 125,000 users more than RMB 25m in deposits.

Car-sharing startups faced similar woes. One example is TOGO, which ceased operations and shut down its headquarters in Beijing even after raising over RMB 300m from five funding rounds since 2015.

Despite such bad news dominating the headlines, China’s sharing economy continued to grow strongly – expanding 41.6% to RMB 2.94tn last year

To continue reading, please download the full report.

Your payment was not successful.

Please make sure you have entered your payment details correctly. Or try again in a few moments.

small logo

The discount code you entered is invalid

Please make sure you have entered your discount code correctly. Or try again in a few moments.

Download successful.

Your sample has been sent. Please check your email.

By accessing and using www.compasslist.com and all pages within the domain (the “Website”), You accept and agree to have read, understood, accepted and agreed to be bound by the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy in full. If you disagree with all or any part of these Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, please do not use or continue any further use of this website. You acknowledge that you are aware that this Website contains an archive of existing content as at 31 December 2021 and is not being actively managed. We are under no obligation to update the content on this Website and, accordingly, no new content or articles will be posted to the Website after 31 December 2021.