China News Service, August 10th (Xie Yiguan, a reporter from China-News Finance and Economics) "From 23:00 on August 10, 2022, the undiscounted price of the bicycle riding card will be adjusted."

  Recently, an announcement issued by Meituan Bicycle attracted the attention of many netizens.

  Previously, Hello Bike had announced price adjustments. Why did the shared bikes continue to rise in price?

Data map.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Jia Tianyong

After Hello, Meituan Bicycle Official Announces Price Increase

  According to the announcement of Meituan Bicycle, the no-discount price of the 7-day card was adjusted from 10 yuan to 15 yuan; the no-discount price of the 30-day card was adjusted from 25 yuan to 35 yuan; the no-discount price of the 90-day card was adjusted from 60 yuan to 90 yuan.

This means that the prices of these three-level riding cards will increase by 5 yuan, 10 yuan, and 30 yuan respectively.

  According to the reporter's understanding, after the adjustment of the Meituan bicycle, the price of the riding card has been equal to that of the Hello bicycle.

In January this year, the undiscounted prices of Hello Bike 7-day, 30-day, and 90-day cycling cards ushered in adjustments, rising to 15 yuan, 35 yuan, and 90 yuan respectively.

  The price of Didi Qingju’s bicycle ride card has not increased yet. Currently, the 7-day ride card is 10 yuan, the 30-day ride card is 25 yuan, and the 90-day ride card is 75 yuan.

  Some netizens said, "It's 35 yuan a month, 420 yuan a year, isn't it good to buy a bicycle with some extra money?" The reporter noticed that although Meituan Bicycle and Hello Bicycle have raised the price of cycling cards, users are still on the platform. The actual purchase may be discounted.

  The reporter set the location in Beijing to search and found that the original price of the Meituan Bicycle 30-day Changqi card is currently 25 yuan, and the actual payment price is 16.8 yuan; the original price of the Hello Bike 30-day monthly card is 35 yuan, and the exclusive price of the Hello APP is 13.67 yuan.

  However, even if there is a preferential price, a loyal user of Hello Bike told reporters, "The current monthly card renewal price has increased by 3 yuan compared with a few months ago."

  In addition to the increase in the price of cycling cards, according to media reports, netizens in many places reported that the starting price of Hello bicycles has increased from 1.5 yuan per half hour to 2 yuan per half hour. At present, Shenyang, Changsha, Foshan, Mianyang, Zhuhai and other cities have single Rides have gone up in price.

  In this regard, some netizens complained that riding a shared bicycle is not as cost-effective as taking a bus.

Data map: Maintenance personnel place shared bicycles.

Photo by Zhang Hengwei

"Cost" becomes the key word for price increase of shared bicycles

  The price increase of shared bicycles has also made some netizens miss the time when shared bicycles were just emerging.

  In order to compete for market share, shared bicycles have experienced a "burning war".

In September 2016, Mobike and ofo bikes were initially priced at 30 minutes/0.5 yuan, accompanied by various subsidy promotions.

With the launch of many other models, the price of shared bicycles has been adjusted to 30 minutes / 1 yuan, and the once large-scale 1 yuan monthly card and other promotional activities in the shared bicycle industry have also gradually withdrawn.

  Later, there were frequent incidents of non-refundable deposits of users of shared bicycles, and the industry began to popularize "deposit-free" cycling, and the cost was also increased several times.

In March last year, the issue of "Shanghai Hello Bicycle charges 2.5 yuan for half an hour" attracted attention.

  For the reason for the price adjustment of the cycling card, Meituan Bicycle explained in the announcement, "due to the increase in hardware and maintenance costs."

Hellobike previously responded to the reasons for the price increase, saying, "The industry's common operation and maintenance manpower investment and product depreciation cost increase."

  According to the Yangcheng Evening News report in May, it was learned from the China Bicycle Association's first quarter 2022 bicycle industry economic operation analysis meeting that in the first quarter of this year, the upstream raw materials for bicycles continued to rise last year, with prices rising by more than 10% year-on-year.

This change has now been transmitted to the downstream of the industry, that is, household bicycles and even bicycle-sharing companies.

  In March of this year, Shimano, a Japanese bicycle parts company, issued a price increase notice saying that due to changes in raw material costs and factors such as production and transportation, the company adjusted product prices from May 1, of which bicycle parts rose by 0.5%. -4%, repair parts rose 4%-7%.

Data map: Citizens ride shared bicycles on the road.

Photo by Zhang Hengwei

Shared bicycle companies generally continue to lose money

  Profitability has always been a major problem faced by shared bicycle companies. In this case, price increases may become an inevitable trend.

  Hello's prospectus shows that from 2018 to 2020, the net losses were 2.208 billion yuan, 1.505 billion yuan, and 1.134 billion yuan respectively, plus the net loss of 836 million yuan in the first quarter of 2021. Over three years, the cumulative loss has been more than 5 billion yuan.

  According to media reports, Mobike, which was wholly-owned by Meituan, lost nearly 5 billion yuan from 2018 to 2020.

Didi's 2021 financial report data shows that Qingju shared bicycles are classified into the loss of 30 billion "other businesses".

  In addition, the annual report of Yonganhang, the "first share of bicycles", shows that in 2021, Yonganhang achieved revenue of 873 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.04%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 43.8444 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 91.13%.

In the first quarter of this year, the performance of Yonganhang continued to decline, of which the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 12.37 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 57.33%.

  Yonganxing stated in its 2021 annual report that the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies decreased by 91.13% compared with the previous year, mainly due to the decrease in the new investment income of Hello Inc. (Hello Travel) in 2021.

  In recent years, the financing of the shared bicycle industry has been greatly reduced. In addition to the price increase, how to get rid of the losses and make the enterprise develop by leaps and bounds may become an important issue for shared bicycle companies to consider.

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