Didi Chuxing (滴滴出行) plans to eliminate about 2,000 jobs, beginning one of the biggest rounds of cutbacks in China’s technology sector, people familiar with the matter said.
Cofounder Cheng Wei (程維) announced the cuts, representing 15 percent of its workforce, during an internal meeting yesterday, where he said some businesses would be re-evaluated and cut back if needed, the people said.
However, the company plans to hire 2,500 workers to staff other areas this year, the people said, asking not to be identified as they were talking about a private matter.
After driving Uber Technologies Inc out of China in 2016, Didi looked ready to dominate China’s ride-hailing market even as it delved into new services from bike-sharing to payments and overseas markets such as Latin America.
Since then it has faced a regulatory and consumer backlash at home after two women passengers were murdered, prompting a shift in focus to safety over growth.
The world’s third-most valuable start-up has also had to contend with fresh competition on its turf from the likes of Meituan Dianping (美團點評).
Despite the cutbacks, Didi intends to add 2,500 people to focus on areas from its international expansion to safety and product engineering, the people said, citing Cheng’s comments.
That means that by the end of this year, it should have about the same Chinese headcount as last year — 13,000 people.
Didi, backed by Apple Inc and Softbank Group Corp, has weathered a storm of criticism after the two passengers died within the space of months. Users began publicly deleting the app, forcing the company to make an apology and promise to prioritize safety, while removing some executives.
Regulators cracked down on the types of drivers and vehicles allowed, shrinking the pool of available rides and stoking discontent among passengers over lengthy wait times.
The Chinese ride-hailing giant is said to have lost 4 billion yuan (US$590 million) in the first six months of last year alone.
Before these cutbacks, Didi had already mothballed certain expansion plans in favor of continuously rolling out a series of compliance and safety measures.
Cheng is said to have told employees last year that the company needed to get away from a single-minded focus on growth — a mentality that earned it a US$56 billion valuation, according to CB Insights.
Even if the company replaces all the people it is letting go this year, the sheer scale of the round of layoffs would be near-unprecedented among a nation of start-ups that until last year enjoyed a record boom.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS