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Business/Finance See other Business/Finance Articles Title: Uber's rapid expansion in China expected to challenge Didi Kuaidi Want... San Francisco-based car-booking service Uber has been growing at breakneck speed in China. So far this year, Uber's bookings in Chengdu, Sichuan province, have grown to 46 times the number in New York, according to a report in the China Business News. Since 2014, Uber has gained 20,000 drivers in Chengdu alone, compared with 26,000 in New York since 2011, Uber founder Travis Kalanick said in an e-mail to investors. The company's business model is quite simple, with people using the app to hire an Uber driver to take them where they want to go. Currently, four of the 10 cities in which Uber has seen the largest growth in business turnover are in China, which makes that country Uber's biggest market outside the United States, according to the report. Uber drivers in China made close to 1 million trips per day last month, a number that was close to the global total–excluding China–for the second half of 2014, according to Kalanick. It is not surprising, therefore, that Uber has decided to pour huge resources into the Chinese market, Kalanick said, adding that the company plans to invest US$1 billion in China. Uber's rapid expansion in China could pose a significant challenge to Didi Kuaidi, China's largest taxi-hailing app, which was the result of a strategic merger earlier this year of Alibaba-backed Kuaidi Dache and Tencent's Didi Dache. When Uber first entered China, it was not seen by internet companies there as a major threat. It was assumed that Uber's marketing was directed at a small group of high-end consumers, given that most of its car models were Audis and BMWs. At the time, Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache were engaged in fierce competition mainly for the taxi-hailing market. In mid-2014, the two Chinese companies joined the competition in the chauffeured services segment. Currently, car-hailing service companies are burning cash to attract clients and to stay ahead of their rivals. While Uber is planning to invest more than 6 billion yuan (US$966 million) in China, Didi Kuaidi intends to launch a new effort to raise US$1.5 billion in funding. Didi Dache reportedly has spent 1.5 billion yuan (US$242.53 million) over the past two years. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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