Yahoo Finance Why Didi has partnered with Apple and Uber
Didi Chuxing is the dominant ride-hailing force to be reckoned with in China.
While Uber has 40 million monthly active users, Didi logs 20 million rides on a daily basis.
A day after Uber CEO Travis Kalanick noted that when building a business in China you have to start from scratch and “in many ways you have to become Chinese,” Didi president Jean Liu acknowledged Kalanick’s effort to make waves in the country.
“It was a hard game but it was a fun one. They played a pretty good sport,” she said with a smile at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.
“China is such a fiercely competitive market for ride sharing. It’s the most competitive market ever. Both domestic players and foreign players are allowed to compete freely and effectively. Thanks to competition we become stronger and more innovative,” Liu said. “The competition here is about how you understand the local market and users. If you use the Didi app here you’ll see how different it is. We use nine different mobility platforms on a single platform.”
Earlier this year, Apple (AAPL) announced it was investing $1 billion in Didi. By forging financial relationships with competitors and unlikely partners like Apple, Liu says, Didi has become stronger and more innovative.
“China is such a big market for Apple and we’re such an important player in China,” she said.
Apple has roughly 11% market share for iPhones in China. Liu explained that many consumers and drivers use iPhones and there are endless ways to collaborate. She suggested that soon users will be able to use Siri and say, “I want to go here” without entering addresses.
“That will be a huge improvement to the user experience,” she said.
When asked about other possible partnerships with Apple, Liu said, “We don’t rule out any possibility. We are definitely going global. We try to leverage local players to tap into local knowledge. But if there aren’t local players we’ll do it alone.”
She reiterated, “We will play a global game.”
Watch out, world.
Melody Hahm is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering entrepreneurship, technology and real estate. Follow her on Twitter @melodyhahm.
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