Chinese ride-sharing firm Didi Chuxing (滴滴出行) yesterday said it had raised US$4 billion from investors, months after a funding round that made it Asia’s most valuable start-up, as the company presses on with a global battle with US giant Uber Technologies Inc.
Local and foreign groups contributed to the huge pot, which is to be used to fuel Didi’s global expansion, and support new developments in artificial intelligence and new energy vehicles, the company said in a statement.
Didi, which bought Uber’s China operations last year, has nearly half a billion users around the world and handles up to 25 million rides per day.
It is to see its valuation rise to US$56 billion, sources close to the matter said.
The company became Asia’s most valuable start-up in April with a valuation of US$50 billion after its previous round of fundraising.
Uber and Didi have been fighting a global turf war since Didi bought out the US firm’s China operations.
Didi has been battling for international market share with Uber by working with local firms including Southeast Asia’s Grab, India’s Ola, US-based Lyft Inc and Europe’s Taxify.
Bloomberg News reported in October that Didi was also in talks with Japanese taxi operator Daiichi Koutsu Sangyo Co Ltd to provide ride-sharing services for Chinese tourists in Japan.
Japanese telecoms giant Softbank Group Corp, which already has stakes in the Chinese firm, is among the backers in the latest fundraising round along with Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Capital, the sources said.
More than 260,000 electric vehicles are running on Didi’s network now, the firm’s chief executive Cheng Wei (程維) said last month.
The firm has also set up a joint venture to build its own charging networks, Cheng added.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last