Uber China merges with Didi Chuxing
Crowdsourced ridesharing and transport giants Uber China and Didi Chuxing will be merging their operations. Uber’s ridesharing app has taken much of the world by storm – but in China it has found Didi Chuxing to be a very tough adversary.
In a blog published on the official Uber Newsroom website today (1 August), Uber’s CEO and Co-Founder Travis Kalanick said that Uber China – in just two years – has “exceeded even [his] wildest dreams”, growing “super fast” and “now doing more than 150 million trips a month”.
However, the Uber chief said that he now believed that it made more sense to cooperate with Didi Chuxing.
“As an entrepreneur, I’ve learned that being successful is about listening to your head as well as following your heart,” said Kalanick. “Uber and Didi Chuxing are investing billions of dollars in China and both companies have yet to turn a profit there. Getting to profitability is the only way to build a sustainable business that can best serve Chinese riders, drivers and cities over the long term.
“I have no doubt that Uber China and Didi Chuxing will be stronger together. That’s why I’m so excited about our future, both in China — a country which has been incredibly open to innovation in our industry—and the rest of the world, where ridesharing is increasingly becoming a credible alternative to car ownership.”
Sources reported that the agreement between the two companies will mean that Didi Chuxing will buy Uber’s China unit in a $35bn deal, but Uber’s service will run independently in China separate from Didi’s own ride-hailing app.
