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Jan. 24 (NBD) – China's bike-sharing platform Mobike has moved all its services to Meituan Dianping, a Chinese on-demand online services provider, and Mobike will become a business unit of Meituan's location-based services department, said Wang Huiwen, who is co-founder and senior vice president of Meituan and will be general manager of the unit, in an internal letter on Wednesday.

Wang also stated Mobike will be renamed as Meituan Bike. Currently the bike-rental platform can be accessed via both Meituan and Mobike app but the latter will shut down later.

Meituan told NBD that deposits, balance and credits of users' original Mobike accounts will not be affected. With regard to whether the bike-sharing platform can be accessed through mini program in WeChat, Mobike responded it will be decided after testing.

Through the new move, Meituan aims at consolidating its various businesses covering food-related services, accommodation and mobility. Expanding its presence in the mobility industry will be an inevitable choice for Meituan to optimize its ecosystem.

Public information showed Meituan took full control of Mobike in April, 2018. In an industry insider's view, Meituan tends to expand business aggressively while Mobike focuses on product but lacks aggression. After the former acquired the latter, more aggressive actions may be taken.

Different from Ofo, another bike-sharing company which now stuck in the mud, Mobike sees new chances as Meituan is placing big hopes on it. Wang Xing once said Mobike aims to become as dominant in the mobility landscape as China's food review juggernaut Dazhong Dianping in the lifestyle service sector.

Some people observed the mobility market has become a battleground for behemoths as they are ramping up efforts to snatch up stakes in mobility companies. Currently, Alibaba owns Hello Chuxing and Amap, while Meituan has Mobike and its car-hailing business.

It is also noticeable that as a latecomer, Hello Chuxing, formerly as Hellobike, seems catching up with other players in the bike-sharing industry.

In fact, competition among these giants is no longer restricted within the mobility market and has stretched to the local services sector.

Sun Naiyue, an analyst with research institute Analysys, said to NBD the user data from bike-rental and car-hailing apps can be also useful for local services platforms. In other words, mobility has a strong connection with local services.

Meituan now plays a leading role in the local services sector. Alibaba also shows strong ambition in the domain by challenging Meituan with the establishment of a local services company through incorporating its food delivery unit Ele.me and local food review platform Koubei.

Another industry insider pointed out as Mobike exerts more obvious synergistic effects after being rebranded as Meituan Bike, the rivalry between Meituan and Alibaba in the local services industry will heat up.

Email: wenqiao@nbd.com.cn