China’s ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing is expanding into the bubble-prone bike-sharing sector, the company said on last Tuesday.
中國共享乘車巨頭滴滴出行上週二表示，它正向有泡沫傾向的共享單車領域擴張。
Didi also confirmed that it will partly take over the running of failed bike-sharing company Bluegogo’s services, allowing Didi users to use Bluegogo’s bikes.
滴滴還證實，它將部分接管倒閉的共享單車公司小藍單車(Bluegogo)的服務運營，讓自家用戶能夠使用小藍單車的自行車。
China’s Bluegogo, which collapsed last November, is not the first dockless bike-sharing service to fail. More than 50 years ago, Amsterdam’s Witte Fietsen - or White Bikes service - closed in a matter of days after people threw the free, unlocked, white bikes into canals and rivers, or stole them.
去年11月，中國的小藍單車(Bluegogo)倒閉，它並非首個倒閉的無樁單車共享服務。50多年前，阿姆斯特丹的“白色單車”(Witte Fietsen)推出沒多少天就關閉了，因爲有些人將這種免費、沒有上鎖的白色自行車扔進溝渠和河裏，還有人偷竊單車。
Consumers have forked out almost Rmb1bn ($150m) in deposits for shared bikes to groups that have since gone bust, according to a report from Ant Financial, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba, the tech company.
科技公司阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的金融科技關聯公司螞蟻金服(Ant Financial)的一份報告顯示，消費者向現已倒閉的'共享單車企業支付了近10億元人民幣(合1.5億美元)押金。
The figure may underestimate consumers’ exposure. The China Consumers Association, a state-run advocacy, issued a public letter in December demanding Kuqi return deposits of about $45 to each of its 16m registered users - if all users were unpaid that would add up to $720m.
這個數字可能還低估了消費者可能蒙受的損失。政府運營的維權機構--中國消費者協會本月發表一封公開信，要求酷騎單車向全部1600萬註冊用戶歸還每人298元人民幣(約45美元)的押金。如果這些用戶誰都拿不回押金，那麼打水漂的押金總額將達到7.2億美元。
The association said it had also received 210,000 complaints from users of the failed Kuqi, after the company listed a nonexistent address for users looking to reclaim their deposits.
中國消費者協會表示，它還從已經倒閉的酷騎單車的用戶那裏接到21萬份投訴，原因是該公司竟然列出一個不存在的地址來打發要求退還押金的用戶。
After acquiring Uber’s China arm in 2016, Didi has kept almost-total control of ride-hailing in China and is now expanding into other countries as well as other sectors. The company acquired ride-hailing app 99 last week, the major challenger to Uber in Brazil.
在2016年收購優步(Uber)中國業務後，滴滴一直近乎完全掌控着中國的叫車服務市場，而且正在向其他國家和其他領域擴張。滴滴上週收購了優步在巴西市場的主要挑戰者、叫車應用“99”。
Didi announced it would soon launch a “comprehensive bike-sharing platform” within its app. The platform will integrate the services of Ofo - which Didi has a significant stake in - as well as Bluegogo, other potential partners, and “DiDi’s upcoming own-branded bike-sharing service,” the company revealed.
滴滴宣佈，將於近期在其應用內推出一個“共享單車平臺”，該平臺將彙集ofo小黃車、小藍單車和即將上線的自有品牌，未來還會接入更多單車品牌。滴滴持有ofo大量股份。
