Chinese taxi service Didi may start working in Moscow in early 2022

by time news

Taxi aggregator Didi, owned by the Chinese company Didi Chuxing, is considering expanding to Moscow in early 2022, Autonews.ru reports, citing sources close to the capital’s mayor’s office.

According to the newspaper, the company’s management is already negotiating with the Moscow Department of Transport. The service itself said that it is too early to talk about specific dates for entering the Moscow market.

On the territory of Russia, the service has been operating since August 2020. Kazan became the first city in the country where it became possible to order a taxi through a Chinese aggregator. Currently Didi services are available in 38 cities of Russia, including Bryansk, Tver, Penza, Ufa, Krasnodar, Saratov, Stavropol and Kostroma.

Vice-President of the National Automobile Union Anton Shaparin believes that at first, after starting work in the capital, DiDi will use hard dumping. Now the Moscow taxi market is divided among themselves by Yandex (71.8% of trips last year), Citymobil (19.2%) and Gett (6.3%). The remaining 2.7% is accounted for by small services and applications.

Didi already faced dumping charges in Russia this summer. The Maxim taxi service filed a complaint with the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) against the company. Company officials argued that Didi sets prices for rides below market prices and pays additional compensation to partner drivers, but the department did not see signs of unfair competition in Didi’s actions. The FAS motivated the decision by the fact that the Russian market for taxi aggregators is highly concentrated and entering it requires significant investments.

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