Social media on wheels: China’s Didi Kuaidi ‘no longer a taxi app', offers networking service as daily rides hit 7 million
New ‘Hitch’ programme helps passengers make friends during their commute; company says private-car requests now double number of daily taxi rides
China’s largest ride-hailing company Didi Kuaidi can no longer be pigeonholed as a taxi app as demand for its private-car rides now dwarfs its other services while it keeps broadening its portfolio of services, according to an executive at the company.
“[Didi]… is no longer a taxi app,” Zhu, vice-president of strategy at Didi Kuaidi, said on Tuesday at the TechCrunch Beijing conference.
“Our biggest business is now private cars,” he said, adding that the company delivers 7 million rides a day, 4 million of which are private-car rides compared to just 2 million taxi journeys.
Moreover, Didi has moved into the social space by launching a new service called Hitch, which targets white-collars. Drivers who register with Hitch input their destination and get paired with a passenger who will be picked up along the way - allowing them to network.