Tencent Holdings, Asia’s largest internet company, has invested in Chinese cab reservation app Didi Taxi as part of plans to promote its payment service to users accessing the web through mobile devices.
Tencent was one of the investors for Didi Taxi’s $100 million (R1.1 billion) fund-raising effort, Jerry Huang, a director of investor relations at Tencent in Shenzhen, said yesterday.
Didi Taxi, created by Beijing Xiaoju Keji Didi Dache, works with more than 300 000 taxis and operates in 30 cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, according to its app description.
Users of Tencent’s instant-messaging app Wechat in mainland China could pay for Didi Taxi bookings using its Weixin Payment service, Huang said.
“Tencent’s payment service could become the main tool for taxi payments in the future,” Yang Yang, an analyst at internet consultancy IResearch, said. – Bloomberg