China’s Didi buys Brazil’s 99 outright, challenging chief rival Uber
Beijing — On Thursday, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing said it had bought Brazil’s 99 Taxis, opening another front in the Beijing-based company’s global battle with Uber. Didi, which claims to be the world’s leading cellphone transportation platform with more than 450-million users, had become a strategic investor in 99 Taxis in January 2017. It now will acquire the company outright along with its 14-million registered users in Brazil as it pushes into the growing Latin American car-share market. "Globalisation is a top strategic priority for Didi," founder and CEO Cheng Wei said in a statement announcing the purchase, adding that the company would continue to seek "diversified international operations and partnerships". Didi said it had now entered into partnerships with seven "major international players", serving more than 1,000 cities worldwide, including Southeast Asia’s Grab, India’s Ola, US-based Lyft and Europe’s Taxify. Didi and Uber have been waging a global turf w...
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