Global On-Demand Ride Services
Uber’s main partner in the Chinese market is Chinese web services and search engine giant Baidu. Didi Kuaidi, Uber’s Chinese competitor, is backed by Alibaba, Softbank, Tencent, China Investment Corp. and Beijing Automotive.
Recently, Uber raised $1.2 billion to help expand its operations worldwide while Didi Kuaidi raised $3 billion in its latest round of funding that closed last week, according to Bloomberg.
Uber-Worldwide-Expansion (Image Courtesy www.core2group.com)
Didi Kuaidi currently operates in 300 Chinese cities while Uber operates in fewer than 50. Uber’s valuation is now estimated at $51 billion while Didi Kuaidi, exclusively based in China, is valued at $16.5 billion. Uber is facing competition all over the world. Uber’s India rival, Ola, for example, just raised $500 million and has a valuation of $5 billion.
With regard to market share, Didi Kuaidi claims it controls 80% of the Chinese market while Uber claims it controls 50% of the market.
According to analysts, much of the money currently being raised by both Uber and Didi Kuaidi will be used to subsidize rides in an effort to expand market share in China, which is expected to become the largest on-demand ride market in the world. In addition, while much of the Chinese economy is being negatively affected by recent stock market turmoil and a slowing economy, there doesn’t appear to be any negative effect on the expansion of ride-handling services.
