Uber to Sell China Business to Rival Didi After Losing Billions • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber to Sell China Business to Rival Didi After Losing Billions

#191

Post by callalex » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 4:31 AM UTC

evanrich87 wrote: post #190

lziest wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Chinese national, I disagree. Taxi experience in big cities in China is generally better because of heavier regulation and competition. In many medium to small cities, it is far worse. Now note Uber only compete in big cities while Didi has already been operating in many smaller cities with large market share. Yet Uber still fails to expand to where ride hailing by app should be popular and desirable. Scooters?…

Slow to adopt WeChat is incorrect. WeChat blocked Uber from the app because Tenecent is one of Didi's largest investors: http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/24/ubers-wechat-drama-exposes...

Crap like this is EXACTLY why trusting mass communications to one company instead of an interconnected system is a terrible idea.

Re: Uber to Sell China Business to Rival Didi After Losing Billions

#192

Post by dingdongding » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 4:41 AM UTC

bing_dai wrote: post #65

Interesting fact: Uber China's Senior VP (Liu Zhen) and Didi's President (Liu Qing, or Jean Liu) are cousins.

This is what is fishy. Probably merger had to happen.

Re: Uber to Sell China Business to Rival Didi After Losing Billions

#193

Post by dingdongding » Tue, Aug 02, 2016, 4:49 AM UTC

mabcat wrote: post #48

ghshephard wrote: post #37

As long as anywhere in the world, I can get out of the airport, open up my Uber App, and summon an Uber - I'm happy.

Don't fly to Sydney then! I don't know what devil-deal was done, but the app won't allow you to summon an UberX inside the airport boundaries.

It is because Uber didn't cut a deal with Sydney Airport. Happens in a lot of airports here in USA where Uber doesn't work. But once you're outside airport boundary you can get an Uber.

Re: Uber to Sell China Business to Rival Didi After Losing Billions

#194

Post by fgonzag » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 8:09 PM UTC

sk5t wrote: post #38

fuzionmonkey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a $7 billion "exit". It's an investment for a 20% stake in Didi for $7 billion, which presumably will increase in value as Didi continues to expand in China, especially with less need for ridiculous spending on driver incentives since they will no longer be competing with Uber. Uber probably had something in the ballpark of 20% market share in China so it sounds like the two decided to simply make peace and…

Suppose you spent $1B on a factory to make blenders + blender marketing + distribution channels, etc. Later, you invest $200MM in another blender concern for a 20% stake. How do you value / account for the first $1B in sunk costs?

As a loss obviously, a sunk cost is exactly that: sunk