Uber, the trailblazing cab-hailing app, is having a hard time in China, with its service failing to meet local customer expectations. (File Photo)
(ECNS) -- Uber, the trailblazing cab-hailing app, is having a hard time in China, with its service failing to meet local customer expectations, marketing strategies repeatedly hitting dead ends, and fierce competition from dominant local rivals.
The U.S. company tapped into the Chinese market in August 2013 by launching the Uber Black pilot in Shanghai, this being a high-end service targeting business people. After official entry into the market in February 2014, it introduced Uber X for medium- to high-end family vehicles, expanding its services to four cities, though both attempts made little headway.
Later in August, the People's Uber, a car pooling service targeting the lower end of the market, was launched in Beijing. But Uber's market share still saw no obvious improvement.
In December 2014, the company announced a cooperation deal with Baidu, China's biggest Internet search engine. The move was widely seen as Uber's effort to better understand and explore the local market, though results remained below par.
The company's service does not appeal to Chinese passengers, one customer surnamed Dong told a reporter, explaining that she once used an Uber service, but the car was dirty and the app did not stop when her trip ended, thus causing overcharging, according to China Business Journal.
She tried to call Uber, but found there was no service hotline, and that the only way to complain was via email. After repeated communication with the company via confusing procedures, Dong finally received a full refund, but found the process troublesome and unpleasant.
Li Yuhong, a senior researcher with CIConsulting, said Uber's bumpy ride in China is down to its failure to meet local customer needs, while its user experience (the key for Internet companies) is not good. At the same time, safety, the issue which haunts the company in other markets around the world, is also a serious concern.
By comparison, Uber's local competitors, Kuaidi Dache - backed by Alibaba - and Didi Dache – with Tencent as investor - know Chinese customers well and dominate the market, having grabbed a 99.8% share by the end of last year, according to a survey by Analysys International.
In Apple's App Store, the download number for Uber is only just over 100, while Didi is over 3,700 and Kuaidi over 3,200, the newspaper reported.
The Chinese taxi-booking market is easy to get bogged down in, with players granting generous subsidies to attract users; Uber, inevitably entangled into a subsidy war, has not been able not match its competitors in this regard either.
Although the Chinese market is large in terms of user numbers, foreign Internet companies find operating in it difficult due to a lack of understanding of the local market and customers. Li said Uber has a long way to go to catch up with its local counterparts.
