Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing re-enters Hong Kong market, upping the ante on competition
The prices were more competitive than Uber, which offered HK$365 on lowest priced service, HK$366 on Uber Taxi and HK$320 by a metered taxi.
The charter fare on Amap, a navigation app which launched taxi-hailing and cross-border car services last month, was HK$333 from Causeway Bay to the airport
Amap is operated by Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the South China Morning Post.
Didi’s passengers will have to pay cash or make cashless payment via QR wallets WeChat Pay and AlipayHK, a joint venture established by Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba.
Lawmaker Ben Chan Han-pan, who chairs the Legislative Council’s transport panel, said taxis charging a charter fare remained legal because operators had a hire-car permit.
“It is illegal not to use the taximeter to calculate the fare. However, taxis themselves, possessing the hire-car permit, are allowed to accept online bookings. As long as both parties agree on the fare, it remains legal,” Chan said.
Therefore, other than Uber Taxi, Uber services are deemed illegal for drivers who do not obtain a hire-car permit.
In recent weeks, some cabbies had posed as passengers on Uber rides to catch and report illegal drivers red-handed.
Didi said the platform also provided a cross-border car service, allowing users to travel from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Huizhou and Zhuhai.
The ride-hailing giant was active in the Hong Kong ride-hailing market starting from 2015 when it operated under two brands Kuaidi and Kuaidi ONE, offering cab and private car ride-hailing services.
It once boasted its premium services such as hiring Teslas for rides. However, those services were met with lacklustre demand and subsequently merged into the “Didi” app in 2018.
Didi has been actively developing overseas services in recent years, and its international business revenue jumped 33.3 per cent year-on-year to 2.22 billion yuan (HK$2.42 billion) in the fourth quarter of last year.
During the quarter, the firm logged a net profit of 818 million yuan.