Dec. 19 (NBD) -- Approximately 10.1 million users of Ofo have admitted online application for deposit refund as of 21:36 on Tuesday, and the number has kept rising.

"I hope everyone at Ofo can stand with and have faith in the company, live bravely rather than escape, and shoulder the responsibility for every penny we owe and for every user who have supported us," Dai Wei, founder and CEO of Ofo, said in a statement on Wednesday.

In a document the bike-sharing company released on Monday, Ofo promised to return the deposit to users in sequence of the application time after it reviews and verifies the applications.

For the users who register the refund at the office of Ofo, the company will add those applicants into the online sequence after it collects related information.

NBD/Han Yang

Over 10 million people are waiting in a queue. What does this means? Assuming there is one person standing at every 50 centimeter, the "virtual" queue of 10 million people will extend over 5,000 kilometers, longer than the driving distance of 4,700 kilometers between Beijing, China and New Delhi, India.

The online deposit refund channel was opened after over one hundred users gathered at Ofo's headquarters in Beijing on Monday to claim their deposits back.

Currently, there are two types of deposits, namely 99 yuan (14.4 U.S. dollars) and 199 yuan (28.9 U.S. dollars). The bike-sharing company, as it promised, will have to refund a whopping amount ranging from 990 million yuan (143.8 million U.S. dollars) to 1.99 billion yuan (289.0 million U.S. dollars), calculated based on 10-million users. This will no doubt deliver a blow to Ofo which is already facing a financial crunch.

This February, Ofo gained two loans from Alibaba by pledging the bicycles to the e-commerce giant. And later in March, Ofo announced a new round of financing, raising 866 million U.S. dollars from investors led by Alibaba.

However, Ofo's financing pace couldn't keep up with its money-burning speed.

Earlier media reports said that Ofo spent 400-500 million yuan (58.1-72.6 million U.S. dollars) each month on salaries, operations and maintenance, and other expenses, citing anonymous sources.

In October this year, news portal Jiemian.com reported that Ofo incurred overall debts of 6.496 billion yuan (943.2 million U.S. dollars) about half a year ago, owing 3.65 billion yuan (530.0 million U.S. dollars) of deposits to users and 1.02 billion yuan (148.1 million U.S. dollars) to suppliers.

Ofo has fallen out with several suppliers over its arrears and has been tangled in over 20 economic cases involving 53.6 million yuan (7.8 million U.S. dollars).

In a previous report, a battery supplier of Ofo said to news outlet Securities Daily that a majority of Ofo's suppliers had ceased cooperation with the bike-sharing company.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn