(Chinese Version)

Uber announced earlier today that the company had officially entered China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and had established the only independent branch in the zone, whose services would be provided and empowered by servers within the country.

Uber announced that the company officially entered China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and established a company with 2.1 billion RMB registered capital. Uber also promised to invest a total of 6.3 billion RMB in China in the future, making it the largest Internet company in Shanghai.

“Uber China is currently preparing relevant materials in accordance with information from related authorities and the Chinese government,” Uber China’s strategic director Liu Zhen revealed, saying that Uber had been positively reacting to the Temporary Management Policy On Cab-Hailing Services that’s being improving by the Ministry of Transportation.

It’s apparent that as a representative overseas giant of the young generation, Uber will not follow its predecessors’ path to deploy its layout, which is designing and developing products at the headquarter and let branches in different regions to be solely in charge of sales. This time, Uber is seemly giving rights of R&D and operation to branches, allowing them to operate in a localized way to maximize their advantages. And China happens to be Uber’s major market.

Ever since its entry to China in February, 2014, Uber now has entered 21 cities in the country including cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu etc. In September this year, Uber launched its Uber Commute service in China that allowed shared rides among everyday commuters and Uber drivers. It was the first time that Uber decided to choose another countries to roll out a new service besides the US.

It's learned that during the next 12 months, Uber plans to not only expand its current foothold of 21 cites to as many as 100 across China, but also develop more innovative transportation apps based on local needs.

According to the enterprise credit information system, Shanghai Wu Bo Information Technology Company Limited was founded in January, 2015, with Uber Hong Kong as its shareholder. Its legal representative is Uber Global’s vice-president of finance Axel Martinez. The company’s register capital jumped from one million RMB to 2.1 billion in June, and its business scope covers software, and the technological development, technology transfer, technical service, and technical consultancy in the field of information technology.

Besides Shanghai Wu Bo Information Technology Company Limited, Uber also founded Wubu Software Technology and Shanghai Wubu Information Technology with Uber’s strategic director Liu Zhen as the legal representative.

“The China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone was opened to society in September, 2013, and it’s the very first pilot free trade zone that’s approved by the state council. On the opening day the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone had already attracted 25 enterprises and 11 financing organizations,” Liu Zhen, the company's highest-ranking local director, stated.

Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone is at the forefront of Chinese economy in today’s new world. It appeals to innovative and high-tech enterprises naturally. As the leading share-economy Internet platform, Uber aims to further improve its localization level and grow as a local firm that’s deeply connected to China’s economy and the very industry it’s in through setting up Wubo in this zone.

Uber’s founder and current CEO Travis Kalanick had expressed several times that Uber took the Chinese market very seriously and found this market promising. “China is just so different from other regions in the world,” Kalanick said during a speech in May in China. “We are optimistic about the Chinese market. I have been to a lot of cities here and I realized that people who manage their cities do care deeply about the development of the city. Their devotion is something I have never seen before. That’s why I have a really good feeling about the Chinese market” In the late September, Ube rmade one step further by making it API available to developers in the Chinese market, with Baidu, Qiongyou, and RavenTech becoming its very first group of partners as a result. 

However, besides facing similar global issues such as resistance from local policies, Uber’s biggest challenge in China is actually competition from the giant local cab-hailing firm DidiKuaidi and its giant investors Tencent and Alibaba.

While Uber is trying everything it can to expand its business in China, DidiKuaidi is making expansion to overseas. Unlike Uber’s internationalization strategy, Didi chose to make alliance based on investment to expand internationally. The company had invested in Grabtaxi, a rising cab-hailing app in Southeast Asia, and Lyft, an American cab-hailing product and later made an investment in Ola from India. It’s apparent that Didi has already become Uber’s biggest rival in China and it’s also trying to threaten Uber’s grip on the global market.

By far Uber hasn’t released any information about the potential candidates for Wubo’s CEO. And the truth is it remains unknown whether this new independent company Wubo will help Uber tackle the obstacles that are presented during the localization process in China and battle powerful local rivals. But still, Wubo is actually an opportunities for many Chinese profession talents for the fact that Wubo is just like another startup company version of Uber, which means they are given a chance to become somebody there just like in a startup team. There’s no doubt that this will be a great incentive for Wubo’ future team to fully explore the Chinese market and make something out of it.

[The article is published and edited with authorization from the author @TMTpost-Chinese, please note source and hyperlink when reproduce.]

Translated by Garrett Lee (Senior Translator at ECHO), working for TMTpost.