China’s largest ride-hailing company, Didi Chuxing has added some strategic capital to its business after Booking Holdings, a travel industry magnate, made a $500 million investment in the company. According to the deal, Booking Holdings which was previously known as Priceline will work closely with Didi to offer its on-demand car services through Booking.com apps. Didi’s customers will also have the option to book hotels through Booking.com and Agoda.
Didi’s official statement claims that the deal would help the company more on a strategic level than a monetary level, as the firm already has multiple billions of dollars on its balance sheet, thanks to the $4 billion funding it received at the end of 2017 and huge financial growth in recent years.
Besides Booking.com and Agoda.com, Booking Holdings also operates OpenTable, Rentacars.com and Kayak making it a powerful ally for Didi. Booking’s support will eventually help Didi in its global expansion, claim experts, as it has launched its services in Australia, Taiwan and Mexico this year. In addition, the Chinese firm has also acquired 99, a local ride hailing company in Brazil.
Apart from augmenting brand presence and customer touchpoints, connecting with travel companies makes much more sense as ride-hailing has changed from simply ride-hailing to a platform for traveling both short distance and longer haul trips. Plausibly, this may be a reason why Didi has doubled its dock less bikes and other transportation modes.
Stephen Zhu, vice-president of strategy at Didi Chuxing said in a statement that Booking is a leader in global online travel and their company is looking forward in improving the travel experience of their customers with the support of the firm’s brands in technology, market and product development.
As per reports, Didi is also considering a deal to sell its car services unit formed in April that contains the firm’s car sales, rental, maintenance, gas and sharing business. The business could be offloaded for a valuation of $1.5 billion, state sources.