百度拟投资Uber

    中国官方媒体中央人民广播电台率先报道百度即将投资Uber的消息。目前还不清楚具体投资规模，但据路透社（Reuters）报道称，百度将于12月17日举行记者招待会，宣布其对“一家美国初创型公司”的投资事宜。

    这将为Uber带来一位强大的中国合作伙伴。目前在中国，Uber的业务仍局限于高端市场，集中在北京、上海和广州等几个超大城市。

    最近几周Uber麻烦不断, 法院对它颁布的一系列禁令，其乘客安全性受到质疑，还有几起公关危机。而在全球最大经济体找到一个强大的新伙伴对它来说将是个利好消息。

    对百度而言，与Uber合作将扩大其业务范围。而对于把数亿中国智能手机用户作为赚钱目标的公司来说，推出打车软件是它们的首选之一。

    百度在国内的两大对手——阿里巴巴和腾讯都有自己的打车软件合作伙伴。阿里巴巴的是快的打车，腾讯的是滴滴打车。今年上半年，两款软件因大打价格战付出了沉重代价，目前基本上各占中国市场的半壁江山。（财富中文网）

    News of the Uber investment was first reported by Chinese state media China National Radio. There are so far no details about the size of the investment, but Baidu has scheduled a press conference to announce an investment ‘in a U.S.-based startup’ on Dec. 17, according to Reuters.

    The move could provide the company with a powerful partner in China, a market where its presence is so far limited to the top end of the market in a handful of megacities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

    Getting a strong new partner in the world’s largest economy would be a welcome fillip for the company that has been beset by a spate of court-ordered restrictions, allegations of poor passenger safety and PR disasters in recent weeks.

    For Baidu, a partnership with Uber would increase the range of services it can offer, and ride-booking apps are high on the list of priorities for companies looking to tap the pockets of hundreds of millions of smartphone-wielding Chinese.

    Two of Baidu’s biggest rivals in China, Alibaba Group Holdings BABA 0.13% and Tencent Holdings Ltd. TCEHY -1.20% both have their own partnerships with taxi-hailing apps. Kuadi Dache, backed by Alibaba, and Didi Dache, backed by Tencent, each claim around half of the Chinese market, after a bitter and expensive price war with each other in the first half of this year.