Ondrej Holzman Apple has announced a huge investment in China, where it has chosen Didi Chuxing as its target, operating as an alternative to regular taxi services. For strategic reasons, the Californian giant intends to invest one billion dollars (23,7 billion crowns) in the Chinese competitor Uber.
"We are making this investment for several strategic reasons, including wanting to learn more about certain parts of the Chinese market," he told Reuters Apple CEO Tim Cook. "Of course, we believe that the invested capital will gradually return to us in a big way."
From Apple's point of view, this is a very important step, because in China in recent months the company has been struggling with a drop in sales and, on the other hand, some of its services have been closed by the local government. However, with a billion dollar investment in Didi Chuxing, Apple can become an important player in China not only in the ride-hailing market.
“Didi symbolizes the innovation taking place in China within the iOS development community. We are impressed with what they have created and their great leadership and look forward to supporting them in their growth,” added Cook.
But it is also a big event for Didi Chuxing, which was founded only four years ago. The value of the company is estimated at 25 billion dollars, and the investment from Apple is the largest in history that it has ever received, as revealed by the executive director Cheng Wei. According to him, this is a "tremendous encouragement and inspiration" for the company.
For example, Alibaba also invested in Didi Chuxing, which has almost 300 million users in 400 Chinese cities. In the Chinese market, Didi Chuxing, formerly known as Didi Kuaidi, is clearly the largest private ride-hailing company, holding over 87 percent of the market. It mediates over 11 million rides per day.
The most prominent competitor is the American Uber, which according to Reuters invests over one billion dollars every year to break into the Chinese market.
The question is what Apple intends with its large investment in a similar service such as Didi Chuxing, that is, besides the fact that Tim Cook continues to believe in the long-term growth of the Chinese economy. Understandably, given the focus of Didi Chuxing, there is again talk of an automotive project that Apple is secretly working on, but Cook said that for now his company is focusing primarily on the CarPlay system.
"That's what we're doing in the automotive industry today, and we'll see what the future holds," Apple's boss said. According to experts, the investment in Didi Chuxing indicates that Apple is not only thinking about cars themselves, but also about business models related to transportation.
