Uber Can Gain China Only by Losing Its Soul: David Fickling
Vehicles move along a road in Shanghai, China, on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013. China's economic growth accelerated for the first time in two years as government efforts to revive demand drove a rebound in industrial output, retail sales and the housing market.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/BloombergWhat does Uber want out of China? If the ride-sharing company avoids being blocked in the People’s Republic, it will have done better than Google, Facebook, Twitter and Dropbox. But Uber can prosper only by abandoning what made it successful in the first place.
Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick plans to invest $1 billion in the country this year to take on the dominant position of Didi Kuaidi, a ride-sharing business backed by China’s largest tech companies, Alibaba and Tencent. He’s got the backing of search engine Baidu and claims to now have a 30 percent to 35 percent market share, but still trails Didi Kuaidi in fundraising.