Police visit 2nd Uber China office
Print Edition
CHINESE police yesterday visited the office of Internet taxi-booking service Uber in a second city in a widening investigation into the company’s operations in China.
Police visited Uber’s office in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, “to get some information,” an official at the city’s transport commission said.
Pictures posted online showed about 12 uniformed officers at a building, which Internet users claimed was the Uber office.
The visit was part of a probe into Uber allowing private drivers to offer their services via the taxi-hailing app, which has a presence in nine Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, the official said.
The Chinese government in January banned drivers of private cars from offering such services through apps.
Police last week raided Uber’s offices in Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, seizing thousands of iPhones and other equipment used by the company to run the private-car booking business.
Guangzhou’s transport commission said it suspected Uber was operating a taxi service without a proper business license and said it could face a fine of 30,000 yuan (US$4,800).
The United States-based company, which is valued at US$40 billion, allows passengers to summon private drivers in more than 250 cities around the world, as an alternative to traditional taxis.
Local taxi companies have said that Uber drivers should be regulated in the same way as normal cabbies and are leading the campaign against the service, which has a small but growing market share in China.
A late arrival to the Chinese market, Uber faces heavy competition from more established local apps — Kuaidi and Didi — both of which are backed by major investors.
Most estimates put Uber’s share of the Chinese market at just 1 percent.
Chinese search engine Baidu announced in December that it had purchased a stake in Uber.
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