It’s been hardly a few hours since reports of Uber China merging with Didi Chuxing surfaced, and it has already prompted responses from others in the industry. Reacting to the news Anthony Tan, CEO of Grab, one of the major competitors of Uber in the region, told his staff in a memo that localized solutions best solve local problems. Uber China losing to Didi Chuxing is a proof of the same and they will make the global ride-hailing service lose again.
After more than a year of intense competition, our investor and global partner Didi has effectively won the battle for market share dominance in China.
Uber has started generating profits in Singapore and Philippines and is working to introduce more services in Southeast Asia. Earlier India and China took most of its attention, but now with exit from Chinese market, it sure is going to take things a notch higher in the region. In the Tan stated,
With the deal in China, we expect Uber to turn more attention and divert resources to our region. But we have seen that when the local champion stays true to their beliefs and strengths, they can prevail. We see this happening in China, and it will be the same here.
Uber has been on a heated war with Didi for a while. They have been on the battlefield for as long as we can remember, each trying to supersede the other with their respective stakes. While the ordeal has been witnessed in China, how that impacts Grab’s rivalry with the online transportation behemoth is yet to be seen.
Didi, India’s Ola, US-based Lyft and Grab had formed a global taxi alliance to collectively take on Uber. Didi finally seems to be ahead in the race, months before Ola succeeded in India, and now Grab is highly motivated to be the boss of the market.
It covers 30 cities across the region and offers services namely GrabBike – bike taxi service, GrabHitch – its carpooling service and GrabFood- food delivery service. With a total funding of $650 million till date, it claims 19 million app downloads and 350,000 drivers.
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