While the various bike sharing companies busily compete for market share in Chinese cities, two of the biggest companies, Mobike and Ofo, have expanded their services overseas, reports thepaper.cn.

On March 21, Mobike and Ofo officially launched their bike-sharing services in Singapore, the first stop of their overseas expansion. Moreover, the bikes used by Ofo in Singapore are variable speed versions, more sophisticated than those in China.

Explaining the reasons for choosing Singapore as the first stop in its overseas expansion, founder of Mobike, Hu Weiwei, said Singapore is a developed economy with sound infrastructure, transparent laws and regulations. Singapore also has one of the highest percentage of smartphone ownership in the world, which is very attractive to bike sharing companies.

In the meantime, Ofo has reportedly started trial operations of bike sharing schemes in London and California. Mobike is also reportedly studying the feasibility of further expanding their businesses in other countries of the world.

However, the thepaper.cn report notes that many challenges may lie ahead for Chinese companies' eyeing overseas expansion, especially in terms of conforming to local laws.

In Singapore, local transport authorities have reportedly expressed caution over the development of the business in the country and have said that they will pay a close attention to how it develops.

While in the US, before the bike sharing company Bluegogo started to deploy their bikes in San Francisco, the local Municipal Transportation Agency wrote a letter to the company's CEO, demanding it followed the laws and acquired business permissions for parking the bikes.