NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, February 24, 2014

In the war between Tencent and Alibaba for China’s emerging mobile payment market, cab-calling services have become the slightly unexpected battlefield.

Smartphone apps Didi (Tencent) and KuaiDi (Alibaba) are competing for the custom of those Chinese people who hail a cab through their online services.

Didi announced on Tuesday that if passengers pay the taxi fare via WeChat (Tencent), they will get a 12 yuan price subsidy. Hours later, rival KuaiDi made a public promise to cut “always one yuan more than our competitor” off the price, if the payment goes through Alipay.