Wukong Bicycle (Chinese: 悟空) was a bicycle-sharing company based in Chongqing, China. The company operated a fleet of 1,200 bicycles in Chongqing from January to July 2017, ceasing operations after 90 percent of their bicycles were reported missing.[1]
History
The company was founded by entrepreneur Lei Houyi in 2016, inspired by the success of other bicycle-sharing systems in Beijing and Shanghai.[2] Houyi named the system "Wukong" after the monkey king Sun Wukong in the classic novel Journey to the West.[3] The system debuted in January 2017, with 1,200 bicycles serving 16,000 users in Chongqing, charging 0.5 yuan per ride.[4] It launched shortly after Ofo, a larger service based in Beijing, arrived in the city.[5] The bicycles, manufactured in small factories locally, came without GPS equipment used by larger companies. The lack of GPS equipment led to the theft of 90 percent of Wukong's fleet; additionally, the hilly terrain in Chongqing dissuaded use of the bicycles.[5][6] Future models were planned come with GPS trackers, along with a national rollout to ten cities by June 2017.[4] On June 21, Wukong announced that it would cease operations within 30 days, retrieving its bicycles and refunding users.[3] Observers called it the first bankruptcy in the Chinese bicycle-sharing industry, which was amid a massive boom.[1]
