燒錢競爭結(jié)束，乘客錢包“受傷”？

所屬教程:金融時報原文閱讀

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2020年08月10日

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燒錢競爭結(jié)束，乘客錢包“受傷”？

優(yōu)步中國與中國競爭對手滴滴出行合并，顯然結(jié)束了一場補(bǔ)貼大戰(zhàn)。而沒有了折扣PK，乘客紛紛在社交平臺上抱怨優(yōu)步在華車費(fèi)上漲明顯。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

Merger 合并；并購['m??d??]

pullback 撤退；障礙['p?lbæk]

ubiquitous 普遍存在的[ju?'b?kw?t?s]

nascent 初期的；發(fā)生中的['næs(?)nt; 'ne?-]

woo 追求；招致；向…求愛[wu?]

haemorrhage 大出血；損失['hem?r?d?]

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Uber fares in China soar after Didideal（640 words）

By Ma Fangjing and Charles Clover in Beijing

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Car-hailing app Uber cut back on promotions and discounts in China on Tuesday, a day after a merger with rival Didi Chuxing put an apparent end to a subsidy battle that cost the San Francisco-based company $1bn last year.

With the ink barely dry on the merger, in which Uber and its Chinese investors took a 20 per cent share of Didi, passengers were going on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, to complain that the cost of regular routes previously taken had risen steeply.

“My ride nearly doubled in price,” complained one user named Longdidongruirui on Weibo, while one Uber journey in Beijing that has regularly cost Rmb10 ($1.50) for the past year cost Rmb19 on Tuesday morning, as the normal discount was not applied.

Uber China declined to comment on the apparent pullback on discounts, while a San Francisco-based spokesman for Uber said “nothing has changed from our end” on prices. Didi Chuxing had already begun to raise prices and end subsidies in June.

Uber’s prices, measured per minute and per kilometre, appeared to be the same as in previous months on Tuesday. But what had changed were the absence of discounts and nearly ubiquitous special promotions. “There are no Uber discounts today,” said Weibo user await_autumn in a post. The normal value of such discounts was not clear.

Analysts said the apparent rowback on discounts was not surprising after a merger that marked the end of competition between two giants that had dominated the nascent car-hailing industry.

For more than a year, Uber and Didi paid expensive subsidies to drivers — sometimes amounting to multiples of the fare — in an effort to woo users with low prices. The subsidies meant that until recently both car-hailing services were less expensive than a regular taxi.

Both saw explosive growth in riders — Didi claims 14m riders per day currently and 300m users, while Uber’s chief executive Travis Kalanick said in a blog post on Monday the service had 150m users per month in China.

But both companies were haemorrhaging cash as a result of the subsidy war. Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, has admitted to losing more than $1bn last year in China, while Cheng Wei, Didi’s chief executive, said last March the company had set aside $4bn in 2015 for what he called “market fostering”.

The biggest losers from the ending of subsidies will probably be the drivers, who fear their livelihoods might be threatened. One driver, who declined to give his name, said he had bought a car and paid Rmb70,000 ($10,500) to rent a Beijing licence plate to drive for Uber in the city. Along with two other Beijing drivers, he reported a sharp drop in orders on Monday afternoon, following the merger announcement.

Any steep increase in the cost of rides might attract the attention of China’s anti-monopoly regulators. On Tuesday, the commerce ministry, one of China’s three antitrust regulators, made it clear it intends to scrutinise the deal, which will concentrate more than 90 per cent of the ride-hailing market in Didi’s hands.

“Mofcom has not currently received a merger filing related to the deal between Didi and Uber,” ministry spokesman Shen Danyang said in response to a reporter’s question. “All transactions must apply to the ministry in advance. Those that haven’t applied won’t be able to carry out a merger.”

It had been unclear previously whether such a filing would be required for the merger. Both Didi and Uber declined to comment on the ministry’s remarks.

Meanwhile, Didi strongly denied a report by news agency Sina.com, which quoted senior Didi vice-president Zhang Bei on a conference call with investors saying Uber and Didi apps would merge within a year. A recording of the conference call was deleted from the internet.

Instead, Didi insisted that both Didi and Uber apps would continue to operate independently.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1. How much Didi’s share did Uber and its Chinese investors take under the contract?

A. a quarter

B. one fifth

C. one third

D. more than half

2. What did Uber’s users complain about on Weibo?

A. poor service

B. enterprise culture

C. higher prices

D. long loading time