Apple’s Tim Cook shows strong support for Beijing bike-sharing start-up Ofo
Ofo is backed by Chinese car-hailing giant Didi Chuxing in which Apple made a rare investment of US$1 billion in May 2016
Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook visited the Beijing-based bike-sharing start-up Ofo on Tuesday amid the intensified fund-raising competition in China’s so-called “Uber-for-bikes” market.
One of the country’s major players in the red hot app-enabled domestic bike-sharing market, Ofo is backed by Chinese car-hailing giant Didi Chuxing in which Apple made a rare investment of US$1 billion in May 2016.
Cook described the investment in Didi as “a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market”.
Neither Apple nor Ofo revealed the purpose of the visit, so it is unknown whether Apple is interested in directly investing in the business, which is battling with Tencent-backed Mobike in gaining a dominant share in the fledgling but rapidly growing sector.
“There is potential for cooperation between Ofo and Apple. For example, Apple Watch can be used to record and share the exercising data when riding a bike,” said Wang Xiaofeng, senior analyst with Forrester Research.
Cook’s visit comes three weeks after Ofo announced a US$450 million investment round from investors including from Didi Chuxing, MatrixPartners China and Citic Private Equity, which together brings the valuation of the three-year-old company to more than US$1 billion.
The company is tussling for funds with biggest rival Mobike, which said in February that its funding in 2017 totaled US$ 300 million.
