In a blow for Uber, Didi Kuaidi receives its official operating license

Shanghai authorities have allowed Didi Kuaidi to run its private driver service in the city, reports Tech in Asia

In yet another blow for Uber in China, its main competitor Didi Kuaidi today received the nation’s first official operating license for an internet-based private driver service. The “Internet Car-Booking License” was issued by Shanghai’s Municipal Transportation Commission, ending the Didi Kuaidi private car service’s time in a legal gray area.
 

Didi Kuaidi didn’t get its regulatory approval easily, though, as Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission (SMTC) director Sun Jianping and Didi Kuaidi CEO Cheng Wei explained at a press briefing this afternoon in Shanghai.
 

The process began in May and was initiated by the SMTC. Per the regulations, Didi Kuaidi is required to do in-house screening and training of all potential drivers. The company is also responsible for making sure that all of the private cars registered on its platform are certified and properly licensed by the city’s government, and the regulations mandate insurance coverage of up to RMB 6 million ($945,000) per vehicle.
 

There are also the standard Chinese technology restrictions. The company’s servers must be licensed and based in mainland China and they must follow Chinese censorship and data protection laws. That may be easily done for Didi, a Chinese company, but foreign firms have often balked at the idea of exposing their inner technological workings to Chinese regulators.
 

In addition to those run-of-the-mill regulations, Didi Kuaidi also introduced a few extra features in Shanghai, as icing on the cake. One is the introduction of “Didi Stations” at key points in the city – namely hospitals and transport hubs – which would provide a reliable flow of drivers to aid areas of the city that are too congested or receive inadequate coverage from existing taxi networks.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.