優步在中國與滴滴開打消耗戰 Uber in taxi war of attrition with Chinese rival Didi Dache

In February, Travis Kalanick, Uber chief executive, met Cheng Wei, chairman of the Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Dache, in Mr Cheng’s Beijing office. But that is just about the only detail of the encounter on which the two companies can agree.

今年2月，優步(Uber)首席執行官特拉維斯慍灓尼克(Travis Kalanick)與中國打車應用滴滴打車董事長程維在後者位於北京的辦公室見面。但這只是兩家公司關於這次會面唯一說法一致的細節。

Mr Cheng says Mr Kalanick and his team were dripping with condescension. “We could tell from the way they looked at us — they thought of us as just another local taxi app from Sichuan,” he told an audience at the Yabuli summit, an internet forum, held last weekend.

程維稱，卡蘭尼克和他的團隊難以掩飾輕蔑神情。“他看我們的眼神就像是我們看四川本土的一個打車軟件一樣，”程維在最近舉行的互聯網論壇“2015亞布力中國企業家論壇夏季高峯會”上告訴聽衆。

He says Mr Kalanick ended with an ultimatum: sell us 40 per cent of your company or else face “embarrassing defeat” in a war with Uber.

他說，卡蘭尼克在談話末尾下了一道最後通牒：要麼把你的公司的40%賣給我，要麼在與優步的戰爭中面臨難堪的失敗。

“I told him, ‘In 1840 when the first western powers arrived in China, they put forth a similar proposal. Give up Taiwan, open up Guangzhou, or else we will take the war all the way to the gates of the Forbidden City!’,” says Mr Cheng.

程維說：“我跟他講，1840年開始第一股列強來到中國時也是開出了同樣的條件，要不然割讓臺灣、開放廣州，要不然就打到紫禁城。”

“Foreign companies see China as a territory to be conquered,” he continued.

“國外企業把中國企業當做開疆拓土的對象，”他表示。

Uber says its “recollection of the conversation is very different”, adding that the meeting was “super friendly”.

優步表示，其對“那次對話的記憶完全不一樣”，並補充說，那次會面“非常友好”。

Mr Kalanick has admitted to getting “passionate” in dealings with competitors in the past. Lyft, a US rival, has accused Uber of everything from poaching investors to clogging its system with fake orders.

卡蘭尼克承認，過去與競爭對手往來的時候自己會變得很“激昂”。優步在美國的競爭對手Lyft曾指控優步不擇手段，從挖走投資者，到用假訂單堵塞Lyft系統。

“I realise that I can come off as a somewhat fierce advocate for Uber,” he said in a speech in June. “I also realise that some have used a different ‘a’ word to describe me.”

“我意識到，我的言行可能會給人以優步的狂熱支持者(advocate)的印象，”卡蘭尼克在6月的一次演講中表示，“我還意識到，一些人曾用另一個‘a’字母開頭的詞來形容我。”

The next few months will show whether Uber has bitten off more than it can chew in China. The country is notorious as a market that big US internet companies, from Amazon to eBay to Google, have all failed to crack, either due to being blocked outright or outmanoeuvred by a local competitor.

接下來幾個月將見證優步在中國市場是否吃不了兜着走。中國有一個不好的名聲：從亞馬遜(Amazon)、eBay到谷歌(Google)等多家美國大型互聯網企業都未能打開這個市場——或者是因爲遭到徹底屏蔽，或者是敗給本土競爭對手。

Like the initial meeting between Mr Cheng and Mr Kalanick, how Uber is doing in China is a matter of perspective. The company says it has about 50 per cent market share in private taxi hailing, while Didi says it controls about 80 per cent of the market.

就像程維和卡蘭尼克的初次會面一樣，評價優步在中國的表現是個視角問題。優步稱其擁有私人打車市場50%的市場份額，而滴滴則表示其控制了約80%的市場。

Both sides are also gunning for each other with massive subsidies — in June Uber said it would spend $1bn in China on subsidies and was logging 1m rides per day. Didi, meanwhile, raised $2bn in a funding round in June and has not yet said how the money will be spent.

雙方都依靠大規模補貼來打擊對方——6月優步表示將在中國支出10億美元用於補貼，其每日打車訂單達到了100萬單。同時，滴滴在6月的一輪融資中募集到20億美元，目前還未公佈將如何使用這筆資金。

Ding Daoshi, founder of Sootoo Research, a Beijing-based internet research group, says the phase of explosive growth for both companies may have passed. “The height of the cash-burning phase is over for both companies,” he says. “They are now focusing on their core customers — those in the cities whose demand does not disappear when it is more expensive.”

北京互聯網研究集團速途研究院(Sootoo Research)創始人丁道師表示，這兩家公司的爆炸性增長階段可能都已過去，“對這兩家公司而言，燒錢階段的高峯已經結束，”他表示，“它們正專注於核心客戶——當服務比較昂貴時需求仍不消失的城市人羣，”

To counter Didi’s local advantage — and raise more money to wage war — Uber has tried to go local, setting up Uber China. It is the only time the business has set up a separate company in a foreign market. It has tried to raise local finance, partly in an effort to build ties to China’s business establishment.

爲了對抗滴滴的本土優勢——以及募集更多資金來發動戰爭——優步試圖走本地化道路，在中國成立了Uber China。這是優步首次在海外市場單獨成立一家公司。優步試圖募集本土資金，在一定程度上也是爲了和中國商界的體制內人士打造關係。

But Didi’s own funding round makes it clear that China’s establishment is closing ranks around its local champion. Even existing investors in Uber, such as Hillhouse Capital, are backing its competitor Didi in China.

但滴滴的融資行動清楚地表明，中國商界已經團結起來支持本土冠軍企業。即使是優步現有的投資者，比如高瓴資本(Hillhouse Capital)，也支持其中國競爭對手滴滴。

Didi’s local advantage is also clear to drivers, who say those at Uber face police discrimination — private taxis are technically illegal in China, but enforcement is selective, according to an Uber driver named Bing Wen. “If the police pull you over, and you say you’re a Didi driver, they let you go. If you’re an Uber driver, you’re fined,” says Mr Bing.

司機們也清楚地瞭解滴滴的本土優勢，他們表示，優步司機面臨警察的歧視——嚴格說來私人出租車在中國並不合法，但根據一位名叫邴文（音譯）的優步司機的說法，執法是有選擇性的。“如果警察讓你把車停到路邊，你說你是滴滴司機，他們會讓你走。如果你是優步司機，你就會遭到罰款，”他表示。