Didi, Uber’s China Rival, announced a total number of 1.43 billion orders in 2015 including taxi, private car, carpooling, bus, test drive, corporate service and other services. And, the total number of registered Didi users had reached 250 million by the end of 2015.
Didi merged with Kuaidi in early 2015. And, its business developed quickly in 2015 which made Didi one of the leaders in the mobile car calling industry in China. The number of Didi’s total orders exceeded 200 million in December 2015.
Year 2015 witnessed an explosive increase in users’ demand for car-hailing services especially in bad weather conditions. Calling requests exceeded 1 million on November 23th 2015 when Beijing had a heavy snow weather, eight times as much as the total number of riding trips in New York on that day.
Allowance of drivers was essential for car calling service providers maintaining a large number of drivers. Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick told in Beijing that Didi spent US$4 billion on driver allowance every year in early 2016 while it was denied by Didi.
Uber China and Didi led China’s car calling industry in 2015. Uber announced 1 million rides as of December 2015. Under the background of car-purchasing restriction policy of some second and third-tier cities, China mobile car calling market is predicted to remain good in 2016. Didi was valued at over US$6 billion in 2015.
Didi rolled out a public SDK this week that enables third-party apps in China to hail a Didi ride from within their own apps. Didi expected to segment services to make it possible for customers share seats in 2016. Meanwhile, Didi planned to open e-commerce business where customers could buy automobiles on Didi mobile app.