中国共享单车依然在路上

The bike-sharing industry has gone from a start-up pitch to mainstream take-up to its first failure in little under a year, led by Chinese companies that have sought to quickly dominate the market with a deluge of cheap bicycles.

共享单车行业在接近一年的时间里经历了三种局面：从初创企业纷纷争取投资，到单车得到广泛使用，再到出现首例倒闭。引领风骚的是那些希望通过大量投放低成本单车迅速占领市场的中国企业。

In 2017, Chinese companies such as ofo and Mobike have expanded rapidly in Europe and the US, backed, respectively, by the deep pockets of tech giants Alibaba and Tencent. But questions exist about whether this is a long-term shift in ownership model or a fad that is only sustainable in the busiest of city centres.

2017年，ofo和摩拜(Mobike)等中国企业在欧美迅速扩张，这两家公司分别得到了科技巨擘阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和腾讯(Tencent)的巨额资金支持。但这是预示着所有权模式的长期变化还是一股只能在最繁忙的城市中心才可持续的风尚，目前尚存疑问。

“It is difficult to see how the companies will become very profitable,” says Mark Tluszcz, chief executive of Mangrove Capital Partners, the venture capital group. “The idea that bike ownership models will change is a very long-term hypothesis.”

“很难想象这些公司将获得巨大盈利，”风投集团曼格鲁夫资本合伙公司(Mangrove Capital Partners)的首席执行官马克•特鲁斯科斯(Mark Tluszcz)表示，“认为单车所有权模式将发生变化的想法是一种非常长远的假说。”

Ofo and Mobike, which were founded in 2014 and 2015, are at the vanguard of the shared-bike market. According to estimates from Roland Berger, the consultancy, 10m bikes are shared globally — of which about 7m are in China. This compares with global figures of just 1.5m in 2015 and 4m last year.

Ofo和摩拜分别创建于2014年和2015年，是共享单车市场上的先锋。根据咨询公司罗兰贝格(Roland Berger)的估算，全球共享单车数量为1000万辆，其中约700万辆在中国。2015年和2016年全球共享单车分别仅为150万辆和400万辆。

But at least 11 start-ups have been raising funds aggressively since the middle of last year, raising concerns about an unsustainable venture capital fuelled growth that relies on an untested consumer trend.

但自去年年中以来，至少有11家初创企业一直在大举融资，这引发了人们对于由风投驱动的增长不可持续的担忧，这种增长依赖于一种未经检验的消费趋势。

“The bike-sharing market is definitely attractive and drawing the attention of several new entrants but at the end of the day not all of them are going to be successful,” says Alexander Dyskin, transportation consultant at Roland Berger.

罗兰贝格交通业咨询顾问亚历山大•迪斯金(Alexander Dyskin)表示：“共享单车市场确实具有吸引力，引起了多个新进入者的关注，但最终它们不会都成功。”

“It’s not enough to just flood cities with bikes — you have to look for the right infrastructure, have the support of local governments and grow the market.”

“在城市大量投放单车还不够，你还必须寻找完善的基础设施、获得当地政府的支持并做大市场。”

China’s Bluegogo, which collapsed last week, 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.

今年11月，中国的小蓝单车(Bluegogo)倒闭，它并非首个倒闭的无桩单车共享服务。50多年前，阿姆斯特丹的“白色单车”(Witte Fietsen)推出没多少天就关闭了，因为有些人将这种免费、没有上锁的白色自行车扔进沟渠和河里，还有人偷窃单车。

In the decades since, cities and companies have launched restricted versions of this model where riders leave shared bikes in specific places using docking stations. But the past year has seen an explosion in venture-backed start-ups offering shared bikes that can be unlocked with smartphones and — crucially — left anywhere.

此后几十年，许多城市和企业推出了这种模式的限制版，骑车者要把共享单车存放在有停车桩的指定区域。但在过去一年里，由风险投资支持的共享单车初创企业急剧增多，这些单车可以通过智能手机解锁，最重要的是，它们可以被停放在任何地方。

“For years lots of cities have wanted a huge bike-sharing service,” says Joseph Seal-Driver, UK operations director for ofo, which last week became the first bike-sharing start-up to raise $1bn.

ofo英国业务总监约瑟夫•希尔-德里弗(Joseph Seal-Driver)表示：“多年来，很多城市希望推出大规模单车共享服务。”ofo最近成为首家融资10亿美元的共享单车初创企业。

“We’re expanding and we’re providing dockless bike sharing as a service to people who want to move to more sustainable transport.”

“我们在扩张，我们提供无桩单车共享服务，面向那些想要转乘乘坐时间更久的交通工具的人们。”

But analysts and investors are still wary. Mr Tluszcz says: “If you’re going to be involved in a business like that it’s going to take a long time — that’s not two to five years, that’s 10 to 15 years — and you’ve got to have the capital to do that.”

但分析人士和投资者仍有所顾忌。特鲁斯科斯表示：“如果你要投身这种业务，它需要很长时间——不是两到5年，而是10到15年——而且你得有资本。”