Meituan expands “aggregation” ride-hailing pilot service into another 15 cities

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Meituan Dache, the ride-hailing arm of Chinese lifestyle services platform Meituan-Dianping, recently expanded its “aggregation” car-hailing service into another 15 cities in China following Nanjing and Shanghai, according to local media outlets.

The 15 newly-added cities are Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Ningbo, Tianjin, Chongqing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Changsha, Hefei, Kunming and Guangzhou. In these cities, users are allowed to access cars on several ride-hailing platforms via Meituan’s app or hail vehicles directly using Meituan’s own catering review interface. 

The “aggregation” is designed to connect users with different mobility service operators, such as Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur, Cao Cao and UCAR, while their biggest rival Didi Chuxing is not included. Before the latest expansion, the Beijing-based e-commerce platform had tested the service in Najing and Shanghai for 824 days. However, Meituan's Express Car service is still not available to users in the aforesaid 15 cities. 

Meituan launched ride-hailing pilot service in Nanjing as early as February 2017 and then started the business in Shanghai a year later. After that, the company decided to expand the testing operation into Beijing, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Chengdu, Fuzhou and Wenzhou and set about recruiting drivers there.

Actually, Meituan Dache is not the only application that allows users book trips from other ride-haling platforms. In July 2018, AutoNavi officially launched its ride-hailing service online and had aggregated 9 platforms by last December. 

EV startup XPENG Motors also became a new player in ride-hailing domain in recent days. The startup launched its ride-hailing trial operation on May 16 in Guangzhou under a service brand of Pengster. Unlike other operators, the new service will only use its Xpeng G3 SUVs which are all run by dedicated chauffeurs.