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Well played by Didi. This was a years-long chess game with enormous stakes and Didi came out winning. Make no mistake, Uber's goal was absolutely to dominate
by erdevs 10y ago
Well played by Didi. This was a years-long chess game with enormous stakes and Didi came out winning. Make no mistake, Uber's goal was absolutely to dominate in China, if they could. That was a big part of their pitch to investors over the past two years. This deal is an admission of defeat and a retreat from competition, salvaging what value they could in the process.
I would imagine this speaks to mounting pressure on Uber to begin producing real profits. If so, expect many changes in the coming year+ as the company's unit economics (outside its usurious car leases) are clearly still abysmal in almost all markets.
- flylib 10y agothis is bad news for Lyft who Didi basically just abandoned after partnering with them and were hoping that Uber would self implode by overspending in China, Uber has got the US market on lock https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/11/lyft-and-didi-kuaidi-launching-cross-platform-service-this-week-in-u-s/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/11/lyft-and-didi-kuaidi-launc...
- pfarnsworth 10y agoMaybe Lyft already knew this, which is why they have been trying to sell themselves.
- erdevs 10y agoMaybe it's bad for Lyft, or maybe it's good. Has it been confirmed that the partnership is void or defunct? If the partnership remains in place, then this is likely a good thing for Lyft. Recall that, unlike Uber, Lyft wasn't trying to storm China and establish itself as a direct player there. Rather, they established a collaboration with Did whereby each company's customers could benefit from the other company's services in their respective countries. As such, assuming the partnership remains alive, this would mean Lyft has an even stronger partner now in China.
- argonaut 10y ago> are clearly still abysmal in almost all markets. Obviously we can't take their statements at face value, but Uber seems to be claiming they are profitable in most markets.
- kuschku 10y agoNot anymore once they have to get insurances for their drivers in the markets they operate in.
- superuser2 10y agoThey did that years ago: https://newsroom.uber.com/insurance-for-uberx-with-ridesharing/ https://newsroom.uber.com/insurance-for-uberx-with-rideshari...