Mobike, one of the world's biggest smart bike-sharing companies, is to refund all of its Chinese users' deposits — a sum of roughly Rmb1bn ($150m) according to an industry insider — marking an intensification of competition with rival Ofo.
The refund was aided by Meituan's acquisition earlier this year of Mobike, a deal valued at around $3.7bn including debt. Meituan, the food delivery and online services platform, is the world's fourth most valuable private technology company.
"The move is designed to establish a no-threshold, zero-burden and zero-condition deposit-free standard for the entire bikesharing industry," Mobike wrote in a statement sent to the Financial Times.