DiDi will invest no less than RMB 1 billion in ride-sharing business

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On December 4th, Cheng Wei, Founder, Chairman and CEO of DiDi Chuxing, said in an interview at 2017 World Internet Conference that, DiDi is still a start-up company despite its five-year history, and that in 2017, DiDi has focused on improving efficiency and services, not competition.

During the annual conference of DiDi in January, 2017, Will gave five key points, self-improvement, customer experience, car-sharing, electric vehicle and self-driving.

Cheng pointed out that as a start-up, DiDi's development has been extraordinary since its foundation, which imposed challenges on management and efficiency, so in 2017 it mainly focused on improving efficiency and customer experience.

Early to two years ago, Cheng proposed same views to focus on improving services and efficiency, and lowering costs in that he regarded DiDi as a start-up, not industry giant. As for whether DiDi will expand its business to include life convenience services, Cheng said, "Anything is possible."

With some cases of bike sharing bankruptcy, many negative voices arose, yet Will still holds that sharing economy is promising, and reveals DiDi's plan to invest no less than 1 billion in car-sharing service. In August this year, DiDi started piloting car-sharing by minute program in Wuhan, Chengdu and Shanghai, and might launch the program in other cities step by step.

Cheng regards AI, sharing and new energy as three dominant trends in the future. In November, DiDi started a new energy vehicle (NEV) infrastructure program with the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization (GEIDCO), to build its own charging networks for NEV. According to the plan revealed by Cheng, DiDi will use more than 1 million NEVs in its platform by 2020.

Besides, AI and self-driving are also two areas DiDi invested in heavily. In May, DiDi finished a new round of financing of $5.5 billion, which was to be invested in technology development.

Cheng believes that the investment in self-driving will only create returns after medium and long-term efforts, and the competition of this industry is quite fierce. He speculates that few companies in this area will survive from competition that is much fiercer than that in PC industry and mobile operating system.