Chinese Uber rival revives UK launch plans

UBER’S Chinese rival is laying the groundwork to enter the UK, three years after it was forced to suspend plans to launch in British cities.

Didi Global has acquired operating licences in cities including Rochdale and Salford and the town of Rotherham in recent months in a move that would allow it to offer taxi services in Britain.

The company has also secured planning permission for offices, stating that it intends to run private hire operations from the building. It is understood that the company is not imminently intending to start offering a taxi service in Britain but is keeping a skeleton operation running should it seek to revive plans in the future.

Didi entering the UK would mark a new challenge to Uber, which has been forced to grant workers’ rights to drivers and pay hundreds of millions in VAT to HMRC after court rulings in recent years.

Didi first made plans to start offering rides in the UK in 2021.

At the time, MPs had raised concerns about whether the service would transfer users’ location data to China. How- ever, Didi suspended its launch plans and laid off staff amid a cyber-security inquiry by the Chinese government, as first revealed by The Telegraph.

Didi’s move to list in New York also angered Beijing authorities and the company’s share price went into freefall amid the crackdown, before the company delisted in 2022.

More recently Didi has focused on markets in Asia, Australasia and South America and is reportedly planning to list in Hong Kong this year.

A Didi spokesman did not comment.