According to a new market research report from IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the scootersharing fleet is forecasted to grow from 774,000 vehicles worldwide in 2019 to more than 4.6 million vehicles in 2024.
The market consists of traditional sit-down electric scooters and stand-up electric scooters. The deployed fleet in traditional scootersharing services is anticipated to reach 482,000 vehicles at the end of 2024.
The fleet of stand-up scooters is anticipated to outnumber the traditional scooters by a factor of ten at the end of the forecast period. The COVID-19 pandemic now affects the scootersharing operators negatively in many countries as many cities limit people’s mobility temporarily. This should not have any impact on the long-term growth in this market, but will result in lower ridership in 2020 than first anticipated.
Scootersharing operators offer access to scooters that are spread across cities. Usage is typically billed by the minute or by distance driven with rates that include fuel/charging, parking, insurance and maintenance. The scootersharing operators have their own street team or utilise a network of partners that ensure that the scooters have fuel or are charged and are serviced on a regular basis. New technologies in the form of telematics systems and smartphones are key enablers of scootersharing services. Notable vendors of scootersharing telematics technology include COMODULE, INVERS, Vulog and Octo Telematics.
“Leading traditional scootersharing operators include Bounce, Vogo, ECooltra, CityScoot and Acciona”, said Martin Svegander, Senior Analyst at Berg Insight. During 2017–2018, new services comprising stand up scooters were introduced. The leading operators in this segment include Lime, Bird, Spin, Tier, Voi and Dott. Nearly all of the 100 specialist scootersharing service companies on the market use a free floating operational model. Today cities in many cases limit the number of stand-up scooters allowed on the streets through mandatory operator licences.
“The regulatory environment shows notable differences between regions, national markets and even on city level due to varying regulatory frameworks”, said Mr. Svegander. Vehicle registration laws is one aspect of how the regulatory environment affects the scootersharing industry. Stand up scootersharing services are still prohibited in some markets including the UK, Ireland, China and Singapore.
Mr. Svegander, added:
“There are still plenty of untapped potential markets for scootersharing operators and we also expect that more countries will allow scootersharing services in the upcoming years.”
