打车软件之争

Even amidst pressure from taxi firms and local governments, for-hire car applications like Uber continue to push into China, with Uber spending enormous amounts of money to break into the Chinese market. Uber, with almost US$ 6 billion in venture capital, is doling out bonuses more valuable than the fares that the drivers collect, The New York Times reports. But for-hire car app companies have experienced a choppy ride so far in expanding their market presence, getting into publicized battles with local governments on regulations over the nascent industry. Uber&`&s Chinese rival, Didi Kuaidi, saw its promotion that gave passengers free rides cancelled due to pressure from transport officials in the capital. In Beijing, law enforcement officers ticketed 161 Did Kuaidi drivers in the first five months of the year. Taxi firms, for one, have seen business severely damaged by the influx of for-hire cars, which customers say tend to be cleaner, cheaper, and of higher quality. But this isn&`&t deterring Uber, which said in May that it has already created more than 60,000 jobs in China. One such new employee, which the Times identified as Jacky, said that in three weeks he earned US$ 1,000 moonlighting for Uber, which was almost half of his monthly salary. However, while present already in 58 countries worldwide, Uber faces severe competition in China from rivals like Didi Kuaidi, which has more than 90 percent of the market. But Uber is reportedly teaming up with Chinese internet giant Baidu, to offer its service directly on Baidu&`&s popular maps application. Already, Uber has begun to enter mainstream culture in China, where it has been the subject of at least one rap song that hailed the benefits of Uber over traditional taxi services, and has also seen jokes that it provides a self-selecting pool of potential husbands for single women. For Caixin online, this is Samuel Liu.