Softbank is definitely the of bike-sharing in Japan. They first launched Docomo bike-share in february 2017 together with NTT Docomo, making around 150 electric-assisted bicycles available at 32 stores in Tokyo and elsewhere. They are equipped with a Smart lock, activatable via a travel card or a pin code.

Then, they launched Hello Cycling together with Openstreet, a dockless bike-share using the same technological system as its Chinese rivals Mobike and Ofo who they are trying to fight again. With Hello Cycling, the parking is restricted to “stations”, but anyway, knowing the respectfulness of Japanese, I doubt they will ever have bad parking behaviours….

This November, Softbank announced a very important partnership with 7-Eleven, to use most of their convenience stores as bike-share stations! The potential is huge with 20 000 stores around the country, 7-Eleven planning to have 5000 bikes in 1000 different stores.

The Japanese market have always been quite a closed one, and it is interesting to see the answer to Mobike entering the country (they currently operate in Sapporo). Come on Japan, fight with your bikes!