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

Bright orange and silver bicycles were once a common sight across Australia’s biggest cities – but the largest bike company in the world’s second attempt to crack our tricky rideshare market has been abandoned. 

More than 1600 bikes worth about $1.3million in total built by Chinese start-up Mobike have been left sitting in warehouses and on streets on Australia’s east coast.

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

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

But bike share companies hoping to crack the Aussie market were met with a wave of difficulties – from vandalism, to theft, and difficult relationships with local councils over the bikes being left in unauthorised spots.  

Mobikes left in a park in Sydney (pictured). The company has gone into liquidation

The start-up was founded by Chinese technology journalist Hu WeiWei (pictured) in 2015

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

By the following year Meituan-Dianping was looking to tighten up its bottom line and chose to shed Mobike’s operations in dozens of overseas countries. 

This marked the end of the start-up’s first attempt in Australia but its assets were bought by a group of overseas-based investors who re-branded and tried again as Onyahbike – or OBike – by Mobike Australia. 

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

A report from Chifley lodged 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 at four storage facilities in NSW and Queensland with an estimated value of $1,341,860,’ the report, seen by The Sydney Morning Herald, stated.

The liquidators said a director advised them there were also a significant number on the streets but these could not be located as the software was no longer active.   

‘As the third-party software provider has terminated the company’s software, we are unable to access the information about the bikes currently deployed,’ one liquidator Henry Kwok, said. 

‘We were advised some bikes may be deployed in Gold Coast, Queensland.’

About 1600 of the bikes are sitting in warehouses and on city streets in Australia 

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

They added Mobike Australia was still the owner and any profit made using or selling the bikes would legally need to go to them. 

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

Lime is still operating and are joined by a second wave of firms including US-based Bird and Chinese-based HelloRide which have recently popped up.

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