© 2026 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Chinese Start-Up Launches Umbrella-Share Business, Loses Umbrellas

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Sure, we've all lost an umbrella or two. But you'd have to really work at it to lose 300,000 of them. A Chinese startup has managed to do just that. The plan was to follow the bike-share, car-share trend and launch an umbrella share. And people loved it so much that they paid the nominal deposit and, yeah, walked those umbrellas right on home. Founder Zhao Shuping is undeterred - his next idea, umbrellas with GPS. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

KCUR is here for Kansas City, because Kansas City is here for KCUR.

Your support makes KCUR's work possible — from reporting that keeps officials accountable, to storytelling that connects our community. You can make sure the future of local journalism is strong.