[DiDi] After beating Uber in China, Didi Chuxing wants to go global
The ride-hailing company plans to use its massive data analysis to take on rivals outside its home turf of China.
Didi Chuxing took on Uber in China and won. Now the Chinese ride-hailing goliath expects to do the same around the world, even without home field advantage.
“We believe the expertise we built in China can benefit another market,” Jean Liu, Didi Chuxing’s president, said Tuesday at the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ.D Live conference in Laguna Beach, California.
Liu wouldn’t give specifics, telling the audience to “stay tuned.”
Didi Chuxing has long been referred to as “China’s version of Uber.” It handles 20 million rides a day, Liu said, three times more than the rest of its international rivals combined. In July, Uber dropped out of the Chinese market and sold its assets there to Didi Chuxing.
The Chinese company operates in Beijing, a city with more than twice New York’s population, and stakes its success on analyzing a massive amount of data, nearly 70 terabytes a day.
Liu said Didi Chuxing’s algorithm can predict with a 90 percent accuracy rate where users will be demanding rides about 15 minutes beforehand. Users can match their rides based on the trove of the data, while drivers have personalized routes based on their preferences. Didi Chuxing is still in its early stages of collecting data to build artificial intelligence for autonomous cars, Liu said.
“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, 20 million rides, that means you’re just a ride-share company,'” Liu said. “But in reality, we are a data company.”
Liu hinted there is a “very good chance” Didi Chuxing will collaborate with Lyft in its global aspirations.
While Uber lost the battle for Beijing, the ride-share company still has a 17 percent stake in Didi Chuxing as part of a massive $35 billion deal. Chinese internet giants like Tencent and Alibaba have also invested in the company. In May, Apple invested $1 billion in Didi Chuxing.
Didi, China’s Uber Rival, Restarts Carpool Service Halted After Passenger Deaths
Didi, which says it has 550 million users world-wide, is Uber’s largest global competitor, and is backed by investors including Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. and Apple Inc. Outside China, the startup has expanded into several countries including Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Australia and Japan.
http://www.technologynewschina.com/2019/11/didi-chinas-uber-rival-restarts-carpool.html
Uber China, DiDi deepen back-end coordination
Uber China will launch a major upgrade to its mobile application and expand into 400 cities in China by the end of this year, the company has announced.
Uber China and DiDi said Tuesday night in a joint announcement that the upgrade is “the beginning of a renewed quest for product innovation across the two services.”
The top two ride-hailing companies in China closed the merger deal on Aug 2.
The upgrade will enable “back-end integration” between Uber China and DiDi Chuxing.
The upgraded app will maintain Uber China’s popular settings, including its simple user interface and 24-hour in-app customer service, and introduce elements of DiDi’s highly successful local design.
Uber China and DiDi vowed to synchronize ride dispatches to qualified DiDi and Uber China drivers and bring positive results in efficiency, said the joint statement.
Prior to the merger, both companies competed in granting subsidies to users to grab market share, which led to financial pressures.
Since the merger, users have complained of higher costs on the two rideshare services, and the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) is investigating the transaction over monopoly concerns.
MOC spokesperson Shen Danyang said in September that Uber China and Didi did not notify the ministry before signing the merger deal, as required by the Anti-Monopoly Law and other regulations.
DiDi, as the world’s leading comprehensive one-stop mobile transportation platform, now offers a full range of mobile tech-based mobility options for some 300 million users across more than 400 Chinese cities.
Source: China Daily