In China, A Battle Uber Didn’t Win : Parallels : NPR
▻http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/03/488477289/in-china-a-battle-uber-didnt-win
Didi and Uber’s lobbying efforts appear to have worked. The new regulations also forbid selling services below cost, heralding the end of the recent price wars. Kitty Fok says that the companies are now likely to turn to premium services to provide revenue to subsidize fares.
Fok notes that Uber China and Didi share a personal connection that certainly can’t have harmed the merger.
Uber China’s Liu Zhen and Didi’s Liu Qing are cousins, and are respectively the niece and daughter of Liu Chuanzhi, the founder of the Lenovo Group, the world’s largest computer maker, which acquired IBM’s personal computer business.
It’s therefore not a huge stretch to say the merger of Uber and Didi is just a way of keeping the competition — and most of China’s ride-hailing business, for that matter — all in the family.
Liu Qing is the president of Didi Chuxing, China’s leading ride-hailing company, worth an estimated $35 billion.