Opinion: Singapore’s oBike has a long way to go

Photo credit: Pexels.

We at Time to First Byte tried oBike early this month to go from the MRT station all the way to East Coast Park and back. The experience was, however, below expectation and the evening turned out to be a real goose chase for oBikes.

Here is the list of misfortunes that we encountered that evening:

1. We couldn’t find the bike even though its location was appearing on the app’s map.
2. The bike was broken and could not be unlocked.
3. The bike broke down while in use.
4. The bike was parked inside a private property.

There are also numerous articles written about these hassles, especially #4. We were disappointed but we’re remaining neutral about oBike. We want to see the service quality improve as the competition toughens up, with industry players becoming full-fledged businesses in Singapore.

Let’s explore further.

Customer experience

The Singapore market will be flooded (if not already) with bike-sharing companies like oBike, Mobike, and Ofo. It won’t be surprising if there will be thousands of bikes on the streets of Singapore by the end of this year.

What does it mean for us consumers?

oBike claims to be the first in the market, offering convenience to users, as they can park their bikes almost anywhere they want. Looking at the app’s map, there are at least 100 bikes in the Jurong (East) neighborhood alone. It also offers convenience to users as they can park the bikes almost anywhere they want.

What are the possible use cases?

We identified potential customer segments in the next section. But for now, here is a list of use cases we thought would suit our interests as weekend warriors:

• Cycle with friends along East Coast Park (maximum of 90 minutes)
• Cycle from HDB flat to nearest supermarket (maximum of 20 minutes)
• Cycle back to HDB flat after a 10 km run (maximum of 30 minutes)

The market opportunity in Singapore

Operations

Business model

The fake sharing economy

Competitive advantage is almost nil

Environmental friends

Ending note