Is it any surprise that Uber can't keep up with a well funded overseas competitor in their native market? I mean just trying to keep up with the changing US regulation landscape that can shift from city to city is hard enough.

I'd almost cede China and stop throwing resources at a market you're likely to lose.

Sounds like they just did that:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-01/uber-said-...

Man I would have looked a lot smarter if I made this comment 3 days ago ;-)

The bigger question is whether they can keep up with competitors in India and SE Asia or whether the Didi deal is precedent to Uber ceding the market to native competitors and ride sharing being carved up into geographical monopolies.

I don't really look forward to an market as important as ride sharing turn into de facto monopolies everywhere in the world.

Everything mentioned in this article is a relatively small factor compared to the largest -- Didi Kuaidi is a Chinese company, and Uber is not. Didi may indeed have the superior approach, but we won't know until the two companies both try to enter a new market outside of their respective countries at around the same time.

My Chinese friend in Beijing once read an article about why Didi was winning. She told me that the article missed one of the most important things in her opinion. With Didi, she can get a fapiao receipt, which she can then give to her company to claim expenses. She can't get a fapiao receipt with Uber. That's why she never takes Uber. I don't know how big of an effect this actually has, it's just an interesting anecdote.

> With Didi, she can get a fapiao receipt, which she can then give to her company to claim expenses. She can't get a fapiao receipt with Uber.

And this right here is here is why you track down your competitors users and ask them why they don't switch.

At least in Mexico, Uber (besides a very small number of taxi companies) is the only company that provides "facturas", a government approved invoice. Without it no expenses are deductible. Standard taxis do not provide them most of the time.

That's part of the reason uber was such a big hit in mexico.

So Uber probably knows about the importance of the document, maybe the Chinese don't let them create them.

Cabs in Shenzhen all have little dashboard printers for the "fapiao." They aren't official and look like a cheap receipt from a corner store. I doubt it is a regulation thing.

Why would they not be official?

How fanciful do you expect of an invoice that comes from a some component of a taxi? A full POS standard?

Official meaning not on a government form

They're totally official. I used them all the time to claim taxi expenses in Beijing. Same in Shenzhen.

Official meaning not on a government form.

Chinese IRS collects sales tax through fapiao (at 17%). So it has no incentives to not let them create invoices.

Sure it does - the Chinese government is protectionist. They're ALWAYS going to find a way to give preference to local companies, and this sounds like an EXTREMELY easy way to do so.

Exactly what I was thinking, it might be a way for the chinese government to make sure a chinese company wins the war. People will very obviously select the provider with whom you can deduct the expense.

Isn't this what 'Uber for Business' is for? Is that not available in China?

How many doom & gloom articles about Uber have there been this week?

I'm undecided on whether it's legitimate, or verging on smear territory.

Such schadenfreude and enmity are natural responses to people or entities which seem overconfident and braggadocios, or which play dirty, or which bully. Uber has created the perception that they are or do all of those things.

Perhaps, but if (and that's a big if) that's the main reason behind these articles, then I'm disappointed in these authors for not being above such pettiness. Or maybe my expectation of more dispassionate articles is naive...

But hopefully the "if" condition of the previous paragraph evaluates to false. :)

I'm not sure if it's pettiness. Perhaps think of it as a societal or economic immunological response. Such actors seek to punish, in whatever ways they can, entities viewed as "bad actors". This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and may actually be a good thing. As in creating social or economic consequences for those who fail to reciprocate resource sharing, these sorts of punitive actions can be net-wins for economy and society. This point goes beyond Uber itself; a conclusion might be that it's great to create a valuable and disruptive service like Uber... but one could be even more successful in doing so if they weren't a jerk about it (or were more savvy about avoiding the perception that they're a jerk).

It may be petty, as you say. Or it may not be. Regardless, it's sad that journalists today don't consistently go after all bad actors, if they're going to do this. Uber seems fairly inept and heavy-handed in managing their leadership brand, but many other companies have proven how simple it is to placate perception while behaving very destructively behind the scenes.

I agree with the principle of there being consequences, but what I don't agree with is for the condemnation to be deliberate and for journalism to be used in service of that, rather than impartial reporting.

When you describe the consequences as an immunological response, I think of something organic, more of an unguided process, not driven by awareness of meta-factors.

The article is from August 2015. Seems OP posted it now because it relates to the recent discussions about Uber and Didi.

Fair point, though I feel there's still something to my point in the broader context outside of this one post.

I'd missed this article. Very interesting to contrast the (stated) strategies and philosophies of each company. Taking Didi's stated approach at face value, it's easy to see why they chose a beneficial partnership with a company like Lyft which seems to share their ethos while seeking to eliminate Uber (and now succeeding at that).

It's all about 关系 in China.