Apple is starting to look around. Smartphones and tablets largely exhausted the grand potential that was 7-8 years ago. Looking for new opportunities to earn Apple has decided to invest a large sum in a Chinese taxi service - a local company Didi Chuxing (originally - Didi Chuxing).
Investments amounted up to $ 1 billion. It is the largest one-time investment in the company's history Didi Chuxing, and over the years it has collected a lot. It is estimated that the market value of Didi Chuxing today is $ 20 billion. This service is responsible for up to 87% of orders for maintenance trips by private taxis in China. At the same time in this country is gaining popularity international service company the Uber Technologies' . Thus, Apple will actually directly compete with Uber.
Why Apple are interested in ordering a taxi service? According to company management, it helps to better understand the extremely important for Apple the Chinese market. What Apple has not said, but that begs explicitly, is to use its own payment services and, consequently, the spread of the Apple platform in China. Also, it is expected that in the not so distant future, vehicles will be largely autorun. This means rapid development of information infrastructure at all levels - from personal devices to the cloud as the program level and at the hardware.