It seems that Ma’s billionaire investment in the Chinese ride-sharing company had an effect and intimidated the «opposing team». On Monday, the news was that the Didi Chuxing who received $ 1 billion from Apple in May bought the rival’s operations for the same amount Uber in China. Now, the Reuters he brought in anonymous sources who revealed that the decision to assign his share of the market to the Chinese company had a lot to do with Ma’s monopoly onslaught.
Didi had already approached Uber to try to merge the two companies, but the resistance was great. The American company even obtained financial aid from the giant Baidu, but it was not enough to reach the value of Didi (~ US $ 28 billion), which had already received investments from the Alibaba Group, its affiliate Ant Financial and Tencent. From the moment Ma entered the game it was clear that if the big tech companies were supporting the rival, it would be difficult for Uber to exceed those values.
Apple’s investment is one of the factors that influenced the decision. Both sides raised huge amounts of capital. They were probably thinking it was going to grow to a nuclear war, which begged the question: do we really want to provide mutual destruction?
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick scheduled a meeting at Apple headquarters the same week that she announced the Didi investment. But it is not known who he planned to meet or for what reason.
The result of all this was definitely positive for the Chinese company: Uber China allowed itself to be bought, causing Uber Technologies to participate in a fifth of Didi, managing to remain with its valuation of $ 62.5 billion.
This whole story, in the end, brings Apple even closer to Uber, in a way. We will wait for scenes from the next chapters.
(via AppleInsider)
