Didi adds Apple Pay support across core mobility services
China’s ride-hailing giant Didi is this week adding support for Apple Pay to its core personal mobility services — including Didi Premier, Didi Express, Didi Luxe and ofo, a partner station-less bike-rental service also powered by an app.
Apple Pay is the mobile payment system baked into iOS, which lets users authenticate payments with a fingerprint biometric (and soon via Face ID — Apple’s new facial biometric feature in the iPhone X).
Didi already supported other iOS features — such as ride-hailing by using Siri from within the Maps app, and via the Apple Watch.
It says it now supports payment through WeChat Pay, Alipay, Apple Pay, QQ Wallet, international credit cards and CMB OneNet Service for core services.
The erstwhile Uber rival — before it swallowed the competition (leaving Uber with a 5.89 equity stake in the merged entity) — has also today said that Didi Select, a second product operated by the Uber China division, has passed one million rides.
Didi Select is targeted at younger, cost-conscious consumers in urban areas, offering more affordable prices than other Didi ride-hailing services.
It was launched this February and the company is targeting it to be in 22 cities by the end of September.
Also today, Didi said its high end on-demand limousine service, Didi Luxe, has launched a bilingual version. The service debuted last month in Beijing, and the company says it intends to extend it to other cities throughout this year and next.
Did, which was founded in 2012, claims some 400 million users across all its services — which as well as individual car-hailing and bike-rental include an Internet-booking bus service (called Didi Bus), and says its business powers more than 20 million rides per day, operating across over 400 major Chinese cities.
Featured Image: Kevin Frayer/Getty ImagesPublished at Fri, 15 Sep 2017 09:42:39 +0000
