Bike-share company Mobike Australia goes into liquidation leaving bikes abandoned on streets

Bright orange and silver bikes were once a common sight in Australia’s biggest cities, but the biggest bike company in the world’s second attempt to crack our complicated ride-sharing market has been abandoned.

More than 1,600 bikes with a total value of around $1.3 million built by Chinese startup Mobike have been left in warehouses and on the streets of Australia’s east coast.

Mobike was founded in Shanghai in 2015 by former technology journalist Hu Weiwei and grew rapidly thanks to nearly $1 billion in investor funding and the sharing economy trend of the late 2010s.

It expanded to other regions and countries before landing on Australian shores in 2017 in Sydney and the Gold Coast.

But bike-sharing companies hoping to break into the Australian market were met with a wave of difficulties, from vandalism to theft and difficult relationships with local councils for leaving bikes in unauthorized places.

Abandoned mobikes in a Sydney park (pictured). The company has gone into liquidation.

The startup was founded by Chinese tech journalist Hu WeiWei (pictured) in 2015

In 2018, the company was sold to Chinese web conglomerate Meituan-Dianping for around $3.8 billion, and Ms. Hu and co-founder Davis Wang left the company that same year.

The following year, Meituan-Dianping was looking to improve its results and decided to divest Mobike’s operations in dozens of foreign countries.

This marked the end of the first attempt at the Australian startup, but its assets were bought by a group of overseas-based investors who rebranded and retested Onyahbike, or OBike, by Mobike Australia.

That went into external administration in October 2022 according to regulator ASIC and the entire business went up for sale in Commercial Real Estate through liquidators Chifley Advisory.

A Chifley report filed just before Christmas revealed that a buyer could not be found and painted a picture of how many bikes were out in the wild.

‘Approximately 1600 bicycles (are) located in four storage facilities in NSW and Queensland with an estimated value of $1,341,860,’ the report, seen by The Sydney Morning Heraldstated.

The liquidators said a director informed them that there were a significant number on the streets as well, but they could not be located because the software was no longer active.

“As the third-party software provider has terminated the company’s software, we are unable to access information about the bikes currently deployed,” said a trustee, Henry Kwok.

“We have been informed that some bikes may be deployed on the Gold Coast, Queensland.”

Around 1,600 of the bikes are in warehouses and on city streets in Australia.

The liquidators made a ‘business decision’ to relinquish any interest in the bikes due to difficulties locating them all, getting their software to work, and paying to store them, effectively leaving them abandoned.

They added that Mobike Australia remained the owner and that any profit made from the use or sale of the bikes would have to legally go to them.

Mobike, Lime and Ofo were among the first wave of bike-sharing companies to appear in Australia.

Lime is still up and running and is being joined by a second wave of companies, including the US-based Bird and China-based HelloRide, which have popped up recently.

The bikes have become sturdier, equipped with GPS and limited speed for the electric versions which, along with improved deals with city councils, could see them become a mainstay on city streets.