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Apple invested $1 billion in this Chinese ride-hailing app - here's how it works

Apple invested $1 billion in this Chinese ride-hailing app - here's how it works

Didi offers seven services through its app, all of which are listed in a grid once you open it.

The app lets you hail a Chinese taxi or private car. You can also book a chauffeur for an extended period of time.

Above you see a Chinese taxi driver using the Didi app.

You can also find and purchase tickets for a Didi bus. Didi has created 33 routes in Beijing and 10 in Shenzen with plans to expand.

Here you see the process for finding a Didi bus based on your start and end location. A bus ride costs between $1.10 and $2.10 and are sourced from licensed travel agencies and leasing companies.

There's also a service called Hitch that lets you carpool with other riders similar to UberPOOL. Here's what the app looks like when searching for a Hitch driver.

You can even test drive a car through the Didi app. As you can see from the screenshot, if you wanted to test a Volkswagen you simply press that specific icon.

A Volkswagen representative will then drive the car to your desired location where you can take it for a spin.

Like Uber, you can search for nearby rides by looking at the app's internal map.

Once you enter your location, you can track in real-time where your car is.

You can also use the app to book a ride in advance by entering the time, date, and pick-up location.

You can rate your driver once the ride is over.

And you can see a breakdown of the cost of your trip and how you paid.

Didi can be accessed in AliPay, a payment service run by Alibaba that lets you send money to other app users similarly to Venmo.

Didi is also embedded in WeChat, which is essentially the Chinese version of Facebook. It boasts 500 million active Chinese users a month.

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