With SG Bike's impending exit from the market, only two operators are left in Singapore - down from over five in the heyday of bike-sharing.New: You can now listen to articles.From the get-go, the bike-sharing industry had to achieve both public transport and business objectives, and balance government and private funding, they noted in light of theSG Bike on Thursday announced it was exiting the market after nearly seven years.
These scant offerings are a far cry from bike-sharing’s boom in early 2018. At the time, Anywheel, Gbikes, Mobike, oBike, ofo, Share Bike SG and SG Bike offered about 200,000 dockless shared bicycles in total. The bike-sharing model is distinct from traditional bike rental, which tends to be “very location-specific and tourist-oriented”, noted the associate professor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.
He pointed out that many operators tend to misunderstand their customer profile by emphasising benefits like decarbonisation and going"car-lite". “Little things like that … maybe a bike-sharing company can expand in that sense because they are reaching out to a customer profile who use bicycles for various reasons.”
Doing so, however, also creates the possibility that some markets aren't large enough to support multiple competitors.Mr Tham believes the government may have “stepped in too much”. It makes things “quite difficult” and “not conducive” for people to invest in bike-sharing companies, he said.