Uber China recently launched a second round of financing; the company’s valuation is between US$6 billion and US$7 billion in July 2015. It also confirmed it has set up a new company in China with an independent headquarters and management and a locally based server.
Since entering the Chinese market, Uber China has been developing very rapidly. The growth rate in the Chinese market is far higher than the global average level. Uber currently planned to expand Chinese markets before the end of the year to 40 cities across China; and 100 cities by the end of next year.
Uber’s transaction in China is expected to reach one third of last year’s total. However, problems such as huge losses, excessive car fare subsidies, scalping, fraud transaction, too much reliance on low-cost marketing, loose verification of the driver and vehicle, and so on, are all existing problems of Uber; in addition, policy changes in each city may also bring Uber China a lot of unknown risks.
And what’s more, the emerging and flourishing of some domestic automobile software in China has, to some extent, blocked the Uber’s development in China, for example, Didi and Kuaidi, and it may face more fierce competition in the future.
The stated problems make many investors have to think about Uber China’s valuation, however, Uber CEO once said that Uber still needed a lot of money to invest into; and, the next three years would have US$1 billion invested in the Chinese market. It would not expect to break even until 2018.
Uber has about 250 markets all over the world, and the total transaction value in global market reached US $3 billion last year. In March 2015 Uber purchased deCarta, a map pioneering company with only 40 staffs. It actively invested in the research and development of new technology.
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