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After spending a year and a half entering nearly 20 cities, Uber wants to take over another 100 cities in the next 12 months.
Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick recently revealed that Uber China has already started operations in about 20 cities. "When we started this year, our market share was about 1%. Nine months later, our market share reached between 30% and 35%."
Just around the time when Didi Kuaidi announced the completion of a new round of financing of US$3 billion, Uber announced that Uber China, as an independent entity, had received US$1.2 billion, including from local Chinese strategic investors, and that new investors would join in the future.
Uber China accelerates
As the pioneer in the field of mobile travel, Uber, which operates in nearly 350 cities in 60 countries and regions around the world, has never lacked Chinese "apprentices". However, after several years of fierce competition in the Chinese mobile travel market, Didi Kuaidi, which is now the winner, is becoming less and less like Uber.
After Didi Dache was officially renamed Didi Chuxing, Didi, which has five mature product lines including taxis, private cars, express cars, ride-sharing cars and designated drivers, has fully demonstrated its ambition to build a one-stop mobile travel platform. According to Cheng Wei, the founder of Didi Dache, Didi will integrate transportation tools in the next three years.
In contrast, Uber's business is more divergent. As long as the algorithm is applicable to the scene, it will try it. It doesn't care much whether the platform connects a car or a helicopter on one end, or a person or express delivery goods on the other end. It is precisely because of this positioning that Uber's current mobile travel business is more focused on private cars and carpooling.
But today, Uber and Didi, the two Chinese ride-hailing companies, have quite a gap in market expansion.
Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick revealed that Uber China currently operates in nearly 20 cities and aims to enter 100 new cities in the next year.
The data provided by Didi to the reporter of "China Business Daily" is that as of July this year, Didi's private car service covers 110 cities.
Kalanick said there are few companies anywhere in the world that can create such a huge industry scale and achieve such rapid growth.
It is worth mentioning that Uber’s approach is not like that of ordinary domestic Internet companies. Instead, it adopts the management strategy preferred by European and American companies. In terms of management, it is more like a “decentralized” and “distributed” management team.
"In fact, Uber is more like a tool, given maximum operating autonomy, so 80% of our operating decisions are made by local general managers. Uber in the United States is more like a strategic investor, responsible for providing infrastructure, tools, and boundary conditions so that they can better serve their cities here." In the view of Liu Zhen, head of Uber's China strategy, Uber's local management team has very broad authority, including the setting of subsidies, price setting, how to find drivers, how to find passengers, what kind of marketing activities to do, all of which are decided by the local team.
Pressure to go public independently
The data released by Kalanick recently showed that the number of trips (orders) completed on Uber's China platform every day is approximately 1 million.
In comparison, Didi Kuaidi's president Jean Liu mentioned in a previous public speech that Didi Chuxing has 4 million orders per day.
However, Travis Kalanick is quite satisfied with Uber's performance in China. "When Uber first entered China, it only had a 1% market share. Nine months later, it has reached about 35%. It is very rare to achieve such a high market share in such a short period of time." However, the two companies seem to have some differences in their market share in China's private car market. According to Didi, Didi's market share in China's private car market reached 82% in the second quarter of this year.
It is worth mentioning that Uber China is the first independent entity established by Uber outside the United States in a country. It is a Chinese Internet company that provides travel services and is operated and managed by a local team with local capital participation.
Information from the Zhuoying No. 6 Special Asset Management Plan of CITIC Securities Asset Management Company shows that Zhuoying No. 6 plans to invest 80% of the funds raised in Uber's global F round (pre-investment valuation of US$50 billion) and 20% in Uber's China B round (pre-investment valuation of US$7 billion). The exit method is overseas or domestic IPO and transfer exit.
Among them, Uber Global plans to go public in the United States in 18 to 24 months, while Uber China plans to go public in Hong Kong or mainland China before the end of 2020.
At the same time, Zhuoying Plan No. 6 also announced that Uber China expects GMV to reach US$17.6 billion in 2017. In comparison, according to Didi's previous forecast, its GMV in 2015 would reach US$12 billion.
However, Uber China has not made any statement on the Zhuoying No. 6 Plan, and emphasized that Uber China has never authorized any organization or individual to sell financial products.
As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
