{"id":340327,"date":"2017-05-08T16:24:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T08:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1486466"},"modified":"2017-05-08T16:24:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T08:24:03","slug":"ride-hailing-giant-didi-finally-offers-an-english-language-option-for-foreigners-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/ride-hailing-giant-didi-finally-offers-an-english-language-option-for-foreigners-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Ride-hailing giant Didi finally offers an English language option for foreigners in China"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There\u2019s good news for foreigners living in, or visiting, China after Didi Chuxing \u2014 the local ride-sharing leader \u2014 added support for English language and overseas credit cards to its service for the first time.<\/p>\n

Didi, which processes\u00a0more 20 million rides a day across its various services, has always been a tricky one for non-Mandarin speakers and visitors. Personally, I\u2019ve never been able to take a ride when\u00a0I\u2019ve visited China unless I use a friend\u2019s app. Worse still, Didi removed international language and payment support<\/a> from the Uber China \u2014 which did support English \u2014 not long after it announced plans to buy its\u00a0U.S. rival\u2019s Chinese business<\/a>. That left no ride-hailing option for non-Mandarin readers.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some relief now since Didi has introduced an English user interface for its three most popular services \u2014 \u2018Taxi,\u2019 \u2018Premier\u2019 private cars, and \u2018Express\u2019 pooling \u2014 in three initial cities,\u00a0Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with more to come soon.\u00a0Didi said it now supports \u201cmajor\u201d international credit cards, offers bilingual customer support over email and phone, and enables\u00a0sign-up via mobile numbers from 12 countries.\u00a0It also touted \u201creal-time, in-app instant text messaging translation\u201d between driver and passenger to help smooth out language issues, which are commonplace when you deal with taxi drivers in China and are not fluent in the local language.\u00a0We\u2019ll reserve full judgement until we are able to test these new options\u00a0in the wild.<\/p>\n

Although some of these features have been tested in beta since February<\/a>, Didi didn\u2019t comment on when it will enable similar options in the Uber China app.<\/p>\n

Didi made its name operating in China, despite making investments in Uber competitors in the U.S., India, Southeast Asia and South America, but recently\u00a0it confirmed it is working on an international strategy. The firm said its\u00a0colossal $5.5 billion financing round<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 completed at a $50 billion valuation<\/a>\u00a0last month\u00a0\u2014 will be used to \u201csupport its global strategy.\u201d Exacts details of what that actually entails\u00a0are unclear at this point, but\u00a0Didi said again that today\u2019s update will \u201cadvance\u201d its internationalization plan.<\/p>\n

Beyond catering to foreigners living in China \u2014 which best estimates tag at just under one million people \u2014 today\u2019s news makes it possible for Didi to begin building a brand among non-China-based users. The update itself is unlikely to send non-China residents rushing to the app stores, but the fact that they can at least use the app when they are in the country gives Didi something to market in the future as and when it is ready to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" There’s good news for foreigners living in, or visiting, China after Didi Chuxing — the local ride-sharing leader — added support for English language and overseas credit cards to its service for the first time.
\nDidi, which processes\u00a0more 20 million rides a day across its various services, has always been a tricky one for non-Mandarin speakers and visitors. Personally… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-340327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}