China's very own biggest cab-hailing service in the country is now to be put up against international cab-hailing empire Uber, as Apple invested $1 billion to the company on Friday.
Apple has been known to be very careful and selective in its technological conquests for startup companies, and this has been a very bold move indeed as the last startup Apple purchased was Beats in 2014. The initiative is said to be the effort of the company to improve sales in China as it has been experiencing weak points in the last few months.
Apple's investment on Didi will mark its first move on attempting to revive its sales in the mainland after the Chinese government shut down its iTunes and iBook stores. "The endorsement from Apple is an enormous encouragement and inspiration for our four-year-old company," Didi's founder and CEO Cheng Wei said in a statement. "Didi will work hard with our drivers, riders and global partners, to make available to every citizen flexible and reliable mobility choices, and help cities solve transportation, environmental and employment challenges."
Didi Chuxing, which is now valued at $20 billion, is a Beijing-based Chinese transportation company that started in June 2012. It was formed by the merging of two rival firms in 2015 and is backed by Alibaba and Tencent, the two largest Chinese Internet companies.
Meanwhile, Apple's share had its first ever quarterly drop in iPhone sales, coming only second to Google's Alphabet in an epic drop of $494.8 billion. Since this year, sales plunged at 14 percent losing about $275 billion in market value lost from Apple.
On the other hand, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with Reuters that the company's initiative is based on several strategic plans such as learning more of China market's segment. In response, Jean Liu, Didi's president, said that the company admired Apple and is looking forward to learning a lot of things from the California-based tech giant.
