Booking.com owner invests $500m in China taxi app

THE US owner of Booking.com has backed the Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing to the tune of $500m (£380m) as the company looks at making inroads into Western markets.

Booking.com and other travel sites will now offer integration with Didi, presenting a way for Western travellers and tourists to book rides using the Chinese app which offers a similar service to Uber.

Didi has been expanding. It recently launched its rider services in Australia and has spread to Mexico. The Chinese giant owns stakes in the Estonian Uber rival Taxify and other apps around the world.

The $500m represents a relatively small sum for Didi, which last year secured $4bn in a funding round from investors including the Japanese tech conglomerate Softbank. Didi has raised a total of $20bn since it was created in 2012.

However, the move means customers of Didi, which controls what were

‘Didi has been expanding – it recently launched its rider services in Australia and has spread to Mexico’

once Uber’s operations in China and other parts of Asia, can now book holidays through Booking.com and other websites such as Agoda and Kayak, which are all owned by Booking Holdings.

China has grown into the world’s biggest source of tourists, potentially enabling customers from Didi to link up to booking sites in the US and UK.

Didi’s interest in Western markets has seen it invest in rival apps. The company made an undisclosed investment in Taxify, which has become a major Uber rival in Europe, last August. Taxify is now thought to be valued at around $1bn.

In 2016, Didi won its battle against Uber in China, persuading its Silicon Valley rival to abandon the market and sell its operations in the country in a deal that took its value to $35bn.

At the time, the deal was seen as a way for Didi to expand beyond its home market and challenge Uber further afield.

The company then gained a $1bn investment from Apple and a year later opened its own research and development centre, called Didi Labs, in Silicon Valley, where it has been testing self-driving cars.

Booking Holdings’ share price firmed 0.5pc yesterday.