(Yicai Global) Aug. 10 -- Chinese bike-sharing giant Ofo, or Beijing Bikelock Technology Co., has teamed up with SoftBank Commerce & Service Corp. to move into the Japanese market and will offer its services in Tokyo and Osaka from September, it said on Aug. 9.

Japan will become Ofo's seventh foreign market after Singapore, the UK, the US, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Malaysia.

The initial phase in Tokyo and Osaka will be to trial operations and assess the market. If the run is successful, Ofo will quickly move into other Japanese cities with help from SoftBank C & S.

The Beijing-based platform will be the third Chinese bike-sharing firm to hit Japan, behind its main competitor Beijing Mobike Technology Co. and Xiaomi-backed Baicycle.

SoftBank C & S is a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp. [TYO:9984]. It is a well-known Japanese information and communication technology company mainly engaged in the manufacture, distribution and sales of networking products, robot technology and cloud services. It also provides a wide range of products and services overseas, including technical and logistics support, sales and marketing.