Ofo gearing up to put 150,000 bikes on London's streets

LONDON: Chinese dockless bike-sharing company Ofo announced plans to put 150,000 of its cycles on London's streets as rival Mobike brought more of its bikes to the British capital on the weekend. Mobike rolled out 200 of its silver and orange bicycles in Islington, three weeks after competitor Ofo dropped off 100 of its yellow cycles on the streets of the same North London borough.

The two bike-sharing companies are the largest in China and the main protagonists in the country's "bike wars", in which dozens of startups have competed for market share in hundreds of cities. The two companies had launched in London boroughs previously - Ofo in Hackney and the City of London and Mobike in Ealing - though Islington is the first place in the capital where the companies have crossed paths.

"We welcome competition in Islington, just as we did in Oxford when Mobike launched there several months after us," said Joseph Seal-Driver, general manager for Ofo in the UK. "It's healthy and ultimately benefits the public."

Outside the capital, Ofo and Mobike operate in Oxford while Mobike operates in Newcastle and Manchester and Ofo hires out bikes in Cambridge and Norwich.

Steve Pyer, Mobike's general manager in the UK, said Islington is a good fit for the bike-sharing scheme because the borough has a "strong cycling culture".