China's Hellobike looks to say hello to Europe

Chinese bicycle-sharing giant Hellobike plans to expand to Europe, its management said Monday, with its point of entry likely to be Paris.

The Shanghai-based firm has submitted a bid in the French capital's tender for dockless bicycle-sharing service in 2025, the company's spokeswoman for France, Belgium and Switzerland, Manon Bouvet, told AFP.

Lime and Dott both currently operate dockless bicycles fleets in Paris and have confirmed they have submitted bids as well.

Paris also has a fleet of docked bicycles called Velib.

Hellobike also plans to submit bids in other French cities as well as Barcelona and Sevilla in Spain.

Its parent company, HelloRide, operates seven million bicycles, as well as scooters and cars, in 500 cities in China.

It generated $2 billion in revenue last year.

The company also operates bicycle-sharing services in Singapore and Sydney.

Among HelloRide's main shareholders are shopping platform Alibaba and its former subsidiary Ant Group, which owns the Alipay payment service.

If Hello wins the Paris tender it plans to assemble the planned 6,000 bicycles for the service in France and hire 60 staff to maintain them.