China ride-hailing giant Didi plans Chile, Peru launches

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Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing is planning to take on U.S. rival Uber in some of Latin America's fastest-growing markets, recruiting managers in Chile, Peru, and Colombia, according to job postings and a company official.

The company's PR team declined to comment on the matter in response to a CGTN query.

Didi has moved senior executives from China to lead its expansion in markets like Chile and Peru, and began in recent weeks advertising for driver operations, crisis management, marketing, and business development personnel in those countries, an analysis of LinkedIn postings show.

Didi's widening expansion, if successful, could make for a bumpier ride for San Francisco-based Uber in Latin America, one of its fastest-growing regions, as it gets ready to go public as soon as later this year.

The two firms are already battling in Brazil, where Didi bought local start-up 99 in January last year, and Mexico, where the Chinese firm lured drivers with higher pay and bonuses for signing up other drivers and passengers.

Didi is China's dominant ride-hailing firm and is backed by investors including Japan's SoftBank.

In 2016, Didi bought Uber's local Chinese operations following a bruising two-year battle for domination in China.

The firm's new Chile public affairs manager, Felipe Contreras, who was previously Uber's corporate communications chief in Chile, said Didi had also hired a senior executive from Chilean cellular phone company WOM to lead its engagement with government and public policy operations.

Contreras confirmed the launch plans and told Reuters that the company's aim was to be a "market leader" in Chile, where Uber, Spain's Cabify and Greece's Beat already transport thousands of passengers a day. Didi is still mulling when to launch its local service, he said, saying, "We are still in the planning and recruitment phase."

Chile's government has yet to pass a law regulating ride-sharing applications, resulting in a legal gray area which sees Uber, Cabify and Beat drivers routinely fined by the police for operating without public transport licenses.

The law is still at committee stage and would need approval by both Chile's lower and upper chambers, a process which could take up to a year. Contreras said the timeline for Didi's launch would "not necessarily" hinge on the law's eventual passing. "We are studying all the variables," he said.

Source(s): Reuters