In April, Didi struck back by entering the food delivery market in Wuxi, a city close to Shanghai. Drivers and passengers flocked to the new service. Meituan didn’t charge drivers to use its platform for the first three months and afterward took only 8% of their revenues, while Didi took 20%. With its competition gutted, Didi gradually began to improve its margins by reducing subsidies to drivers and passengers.īut just as the company began to reach profitability, in early 2018, Meituan, a giant player in online-to-offline services such as food delivery, movie ticketing, and travel booking, launched its own ride-hailing business in Shanghai. It had arrived at this milestone by merging in 2015 with its domestic rival, Kuaidi, and pushing Uber out of the Chinese market after a fierce, expensive battle.

In 2016, Didi became the world’s largest ride-sharing company, reaching 25 million trips a day in China and surpassing the combined daily trips of all other ride-sharing companies across the globe.

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