Han Ximin

    ximhan@126.com

    DIDI Kuaidi announced Tuesday that the company has registered more than 10 million completed rides per day, becoming the second-largest online transaction platform in China after Taobao.

    In core markets such as Beijing and Chengdu, Didi Express (Kuaiche)’s rides exceeded 1 million per day.

    It was a year of rapid growth for Didi last year. The 250 million users on its platform completed 1.43 billion rides, twice the total number of yearly taxi rides (approximately 800 million) in America. Industry sources such as CNNIC, Nielsen and Analysys recognize Didi Kuaidi as the leader in the private-car hailing market and confirm it is China’s and the world’s largest mobile-based transportation platform.

    Cheng Wei, CEO of Didi, said the company would focus on enhancing its vertical capacities to further improve urban traveling efficiency in 2016.

    “We would like to go from hailing a car to hailing a seat when our ride-pooling is introduced to taxis, express cars, private cars, and Hitch. Didi spent three years linking up urban mobility options on our mobile platform,” Cheng said.

    Daily rides for Didi Express Pool service exceeded 1.57 million as technological innovation continues to improve platform efficiency.

    Three months after its launch, Didi Express Pool has shown how the car-pooling vision is already becoming a reality, with daily orders exceeding 1.57 million. Through big data algorithms, Didi Express Pool matches passengers heading similar directions and encourages them to share the cost of the ride. By the end of February, the number of riders with Didi Express Pool exceeded 83.2 million in 15 cities, including Beijing, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Guangzhou.

    The Express Pool is also a tool to effectively increase driver incomes, decrease passenger costs, and enhance the platform’s operational efficiency. The drivers’ hourly rate for completed orders has risen 20 percent and their average income has grown 30-40 percent. Passengers, on the other hand, can reduce the cost per ride by up to 60 percent when using the Express Pool and increase their ride-hailing success rate by 5 percent, according to Didi.

    According to data from Didi’s platform, carpooling is becoming more popular among passengers. More than 50 percent of all passengers are willing to share their ride; and 65-80 percent of them find fellow riders successfully. Out of all Chinese cities, passengers from Qingdao, Nanjing and Hangzhou are particularly receptive to carpooling.

    Carpooling rides require 10 times more computing resources than non-carpooling rides. The high success rate of carpooling orders is a testament to Didi’s data analytical and match-and-dispatch capabilities. Passenger waiting time has fallen to around four minutes, with an error rate of less than 10 percent.

    Didi’s Express Pool service will be launched in 12 new cities over the next month. In the meantime, the Express Pool service will gradually enable back-to-back ridesharing, which will allow up to three groups of passengers to share one ride. The new initiative is expected to further increase the platform’s efficiency, increase driver incomes, and further contribute to reducing urban traffic congestion, the company said.