HelloBike, the Chinese giant that wants to take over the Parisian bike-sharing market

Chinese bikes in Paris, season 2? Seven years after the spectacular but short-lived arrivals of the giants Ofo and Mobike, one of their historic competitors, HelloBike, is showing up. The young Shanghai-based company announced on Monday that it is a candidate for the Paris city hall’s call for tenders for self-service electric bikes.

It will have at least two serious candidates facing them: Lime and Dott (which merged with Tier in 2024) already operate in the French capital and intend to keep this strategic market for their future. Their service was acclaimed during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, when car traffic was restricted in the heart of the city.

Anne Hidalgo, who has made the development of soft mobility a priority of her mandate, has launched a call for tenders to select three companies. The latter will be able to operate 6,000 battery-powered bicycles each. Unlike Vélib’, created in 2007, these two-wheelers do not need to be attached to a terminal. But they must still be parked in dedicated spaces at the end of the journeys.

Crucial call for tenders

The contract will begin in the summer of 2025 and will be signed for four years. A period twice as long as for the call for tenders for electric scooters, which was not renewed after the organization of a referendum in which Parisians voted overwhelmingly (89%) in favor of their expulsion (with, it is true, a very low turnout).

In the summer of 2023, the city of Paris also chose two electric scooter operators. But, a few months after the verdict, one of the winners, Cityscoot, in serious financial difficulty, was bought out of the commercial court by its competitor Cooltra, now in a monopoly situation.

Hellobike is one of the survivors of the “free-floating bike war”. The company, which counts Alibaba among its shareholders, was founded at the same time as Ofo and Mobike, two overfunded start-ups that flooded the asphalt of major European cities – including Paris – before exploding in flight. A “strategy” that stuck in the craw of Parisian elected officials who had watched helplessly as this spectacle took place, before history repeated itself with scooters…

Late international expansion

Unlike its rivals, HelloBike has chosen to focus on China. It claims a fleet of 7 million vehicles in 500 cities in the country and a turnover of almost 2 billion euros in 2023. The company has launched in Singapore and Sydney and is now looking to expand into European cities, such as Paris, which is a magnet for mobility start-ups.

If its application is accepted in Paris, HelloBike promises to have its bikes assembled in the Cibox factory in Revin (Ardennes). The model in circulation in France would be smaller than the current version, with a longer lifespan, particularly concerning its battery, Manon Bouvet, spokesperson for the group for France, Belgium and Switzerland, told AFP. Some should also be equipped with child seats. In addition, the young company plans to deploy its fleet throughout Greater Paris. If successful, around sixty employees should be recruited in Ile-de-France to maintain the fleet.