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The Almighty Buck Businesses China Iphone Transportation United States Apple Technology

Apple Invests $1 Billion In Uber's Chinese Rival Didi (bloomberg.com) 40

Posted by BeauHD from the money-reserves dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple Inc. invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-sharing service Didi, making one of its biggest bets on software and services and dealing a blow to Uber Technologies Inc.'s ambitions in the country. The iPhone maker will help Uber's largest rival build up a ride-sharing platform that handles more than 11 million rides a day and serves about 300 million users across China, Didi said in a statement on Friday. Executive Officer Tim Cook has highlighted higher-margin services as a growth area and suggested he would use some of its $200 billion-plus cash hoard for investments. The investment in one of China's largest online companies will allow Apple to forge alliances in its single largest market outside of the United States. Didi, incorporated as Xiaoju Kuaizhi Inc., is in the process of raising more than $2 billion at a valuation of about $25 billion, people familiar with the matter have said. It operates in 400 Chinese cities and works with more than 14 million Chinese car owners. The company is Uber's most potent rival and has formed an international coalition with Lyft Inc. in the U.S., India's Ola and Southeast Asia's Grab to fight the globally expanding San Francisco firm. Apple is hoping to reinvigorate lackluster iPhone sales in China with its $1 billion investment in Didi. The last big investment the company made was when it acquired Beats for $3 billion in 2014.
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Apple Invests $1 Billion In Uber's Chinese Rival Didi More

Apple Invests $1 Billion In Uber's Chinese Rival Didi

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  • Slashdot sucks (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm not posting this to troll. I'm a long time reader from the late 1990s. The site has changed tremendously and not for the better. The stories are far different than they were in the early days of Slashdot.

    There was always a Your Rights Online section, which focused on intellectual property, surveillance, and other issues of the law and technology. Now, it seems like every second or third story is about the FBI or someone else fighting about encryption, some egregious intellectual property rights abuse, o

  • What would Apple do if another U.S. company invested $1 billion in a Chinese company that most likely infringed on one or more of their patents? I'm not saying I agree with patents on business models or methodologies, but since they exist, this is a legitimate question.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Are US 'patents' on business model or methodologies accepted anywhere else in world? There doesn't seem to be any rational other than rent seeking for allowing it. Impressive the way the population of the US have been convinced that imaginary property rights can extend so far.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by WarJolt ( 990309 )

        Bullying with patents doesn't require a defendable patent, just a legal system which creates incentives to settle due to the price of fighting. Violators aren't treated as a class, so each defendant has to cough up their own lawyer fees.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

          ...each defendant has to cough up their own lawyer fees.

          Unless they move for fees [globalipmatters.com].

          Really, you're not helping people when you're so consistently wrong.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Wovel ( 964431 )

      Happens like every day. In most cases they don't seem to care too much.

  • Apple throws away $1B (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They can afford it I guess.

  • Now to see whether this is the beginning of tossing around a lot more cash as a means of getting cozier with China again.

  • Western Companies Collectively Are Idiots (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    China is gonna use you and then discard you. There's no even playing field. All you have done the last 40 years is give away everyone's job and thinking outsourcing won't ever affect you. It's not like IP can ever be stolen? Right, guys? LOL.

    Well news flash, ebay has been offering direct from China goods for a while now, shipping costs nothing (which our dumb USPS even signs deals to make cheaper, who knows why?) while our shipping containers to China go empty.

    We killed the environment because they hav

  • I wonder how much of this is about attempting to 'break into the Chinese market' and how much of it is simply the fact that the time to get in 'on the ground floor' with Uber is long past, so Apple couldn't realistically expect nearly as much growth or control-over-future-direction-of-the-company if they'd made an equivalent purchase in Uber or Lyft? Either of those two might(or might not, I don't know and it isn't terribly relevant to this post) still be a perfectly viable buy if one is merely looking to m
  • Sounds like a taxi service to me. What will those Chinese think of next?

  • Since when is Uber a ride-sharing service? Do they stop along the way to pick up people sharing your ride?
    Uber (except Uber Pool) is a cab service, not a ride-sharing service.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kwerle ( 39371 )

      I've used Uber Pool about half a dozen times in the SF area. I think they offer it in places where the driver to passenger ratio isn't high enough to cover all the trips they want to do. And/or where there are large events that can slam the service from a single location.

  • Good Thing We Gave Them Tax Breaks (Score:3)

    by twmcneil ( 942300 ) on Friday May 13, 2016 @09:19AM (#52104085)
    This is why I grind my teeth anytime someone says we can't tax the corporations or else they'll go somewhere else. They took their jobs to China. Now they take their investment dollars there too. Tax the shit out of them I say.
    • You have it the other way around. The reason Apple is investing this money in China is that if they want to bring any of the money they've made in China (and have already been taxed on in China) back to the U.S. they would need to pay U.S. taxes on it. The U.S. corporate tax rate it one of the highest in the world (yes, even less than those so-called socialist paradise Scandinavian countries) which makes it less desirable to invest money in the U.S. and results in companies finding all manner of clever ways

  • I wonder if they are going to beta test self driving cars in a country that can instantly change/implement self-driving laws that suit them.

  • I have an idea. How about release a phone that the Chinese actually want and can afford? I mean in China last year I saw scores and scores of Chinese smartphones. Most ran Android, and most of those running Android you'd barely recognise the platform as such. Huawei's alternatives cost a fraction of the price and offer a far more native interface (something the Chinese feel familiar with, not something that a western company introduces).

    I don't understand how Apple could magical assume that people all over

  • I keep imagining a short, ginger Apple engineer mumbling to himself; "... as long as she stays out of my laboratory...."

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