Uber invests big in China in face of fierce rival

San Francisco: The head of Uber said the ride-sharing firm has spent a billion dollars to gain traction in China, where the local champ may not be playing fair.

Uber's share of the Chinese market has climbed from one percent at the start of the year to about 30 percent. But the company remains a distant second to Didi Kuaidi, Uber co-founder and chief executive Travis Kalanick said yesterday during an on-stage chat at a WSJDLive technology conference on the Southern California coast.

The controversial, mobile Internet based ride sharing service was hitting points of profitability in some cities in North America and Europe, but remains a money-losing "underdog" in China, according to Kalanick.

While stopping short of saying that dirty tricks were coming into play in the battle for the China ride-sharing market, he knows of some data that might back his case.

Didi backer TenCent owns messaging service WeChat, which has shut down Uber accounts, suppressed positive stories about Uber and promoted negative news, Kalanick said.

He contended that there was even a time when WeChat messages containing the word "Uber" would vanish into the ether, appearing to senders as though they had been delivered.

California-based Uber remains devoted to what Kalanick described as an exciting and fast-growing China market for ride-sharing service in the mobile Internet age.

"We are investing a fair amount of money there," Kalanick said.

"We are definitely spending a billion dollars a year on that effort but we feel great about it. For an entrepreneur, this is where the action is."

Uber last month confirmed that it had raised an additional USD 1.2 billion in a funding round led by Chinese online search colossus Baidu.

The news came about the same time as word of arch-rival Didi adding USD 3 billion to its wallet in a funding round of its own.