FIRST Ofo and Mobike each have over 100 million users globally, with the latter recording 25 million rides daily in 150 cities. Meanwhile, oBike has attracted Grishin Robotics and has secured US$45m in its Series B funding round in August. Since March, it achieved 500,000 signups.
3 in 5 workers ARE unhappy
Singapore’s employees feel they are vastly overworked and underpaid. Despite the city’s reputation as a global and regional financial hub, its employees maintain that they are not the happiest lot. JobsCentral’s Work Happiness Survey Report 2017 confirmed that whilst Singapore is beaming with business, its employee retention rate might decrease as a majority of workers itch to leave their jobs for greener pastures. The report indicated that 65% of the respondents are not satisfied where they are whilst 34.6% desire to get a pay raise from their bosses. As the cost of living in the city shoots up and the effects of the economic slowdown are felt, workers hope that the numbers on their paychecks increase in conjunction. Across all work attributes, respondents placed the most weight on salary followed by work-life balance, good relations with colleagues, interesting work, and acceptable work demands. Happiest employees Employees from editorial and translation services are the happiest with an average Work Happiness Indicator score of 75.8, placing huge importance on the following attributes: positive impact to society, safe working conditions, and autonomy at work. A far second are the employees in the field of public relations with an average score of 60.1, followed by employees in the marketing industry with an average score of 60.0. The least happy employees in Singapore are those in the function of customer support with an average score of 47.0, owing to the difficult nature of responding to various customer inquiries and feedback. The report also noted that non-Singapore citizens and non-permanent residents are happier with a score of 54.9 compared to citizens and Singapore permanent residents with average scores of 50.6 and 51.0, respectively. 8
SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | NOVEMBER 2017
Ofo plans to establish over 100 preferred parking zones and release more than 10,000 bicycles by end-2017
Bike-sharing firms gear up for a car-lite society
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hilst the bike-sharing trend has already been booming in other markets such as China, it was only this year when three major bike-sharing platforms decided to commence their operations in Singapore, in support of the government’s push for a car-lite society. Beijing-based Ofo and Mobike, as well as the homegrown oBike, are the biggest firms to offer stationless bike-sharing models. In July, Ofo managed to raise the largest investment in an app-based bike-sharing firm, recording more than US$700m in its latest Series E funding round led by Alibaba, Hony Capital, and CITIC Private Equity, resulting in an estimated valuation of about US$2b. “We are very fortunate to be part of the global sharing economy and investors have exhibited a lot of confidence in our business model,” Ofo said. This funding feat trumped Mobike’s US$600m Series E funding, with investors including Singapore-owned Temasek, Warburg Pincus, Tencent, and Sequoia.
Ofo and Mobike each have over 100 million users globally, with the latter recording 25 million rides daily in 150 cities.
Challenges and bike-sharing’s future Since these firms utilise dockless systems, one recurring problem that operators face are errant riders. In July, LTA’s Active Mobility Enforcement Officers impounded 70 dockless bicycles that were parked indiscriminately. To counter and discipline errant drivers, credit systems were put in place where users will gain and lose points depending on their behaviour. Once the credit score falls below 80, the user will be charged $100 per 30 mins. Ofo also said it has segmented their operations into districts based on population density and it has deployed on-the-ground operations crew in each district to locate indiscriminately-parked bikes. For oBike, the use of the latest Bluetooth technology helps track the location of their bikes accurately, reducing the time the maintenance team spends in finding and redeploying bikes. These bike sharing firms are a part of the bigger sharing economy model that is taking off globally. PwC said this model has all it takes to grow from US$15b to US$335b by 2025. For Mobike, it stated that it is actively developing its artificial intelligence platform that can integrate and analyse hundreds of variables including weather, time of day, location, crowd patterns, and supply and demand trends.
Mobike records 25 million rides daily