N China’s Baotou introduces Hellobike service

Baotou became the first city in Inner Mongolia to introduce a Hellobike service, with the bright blue-colored bikes making their debut in the city on April 14, reports Baotou Daily.

It is the second bike sharing service that has been introduced to the city following Ofo which came to the city in September 2017.

The Hellobike service, developed by Shanghai Junzheng Network Technology Co, has expanded to more than 180 domestic cities with more than five million bikes placed nationwide and100 million registered users.

It is one of the most popular bike sharing services in China and has been nicknamed “Lan Peng You” which means “blue friend”.

The bikes can be accessed by scanning the QR code on each bike using Alipay or the Hellobike app. The bike is then unlocked using Bluetooth technology.

The bikes will be equipped with a GPS tracking service to track routes and calculate fees.

Bike sharing services are currently booming in China with leading companies like Ofo, Hellobike and Mobike introducing shared bikes to first and second-tier Chinese cities including Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. The craze for bike sharing has quickly spread to other parts of the country, mostly to third-tier cities. The bike services have become a popular ecofriendly mode of transport.

The first batch of blue-colored Hellobikes in Baotou, North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, April 14. [Photo/Baotou Daily]