Uber Faces Challenges of Local ization in China

Uber， an American com- pany focusing on connecting passengers to car drivers， held a press conference， officially announcing its entry into the Chinese market.

With the Chinese name of “You Bu” （Excellent Step）， Uber has been working in a low profile in Shanghai， Guangzhou and Shenzhen for a while. As a high-end private car service app， Uber is going to work with car renting companies in China to provide “highend and custom car services” for users. It has already appointed regional executives in Beijing， Shanghai and Guangzhou， marking its official entry into Chinese market of car-calling app in spite of the furious competition there.

Ubers positioning in China： high-end private cars

Uber is not the common taxi app we are familiar with. It is called the“car-calling” app because it can meet peoples versatile demand for going-out. In the U.S.， Uber signed contracts with car renting companies， tax companies and even private car owners. Generally speaking， it is a kind of U.S. version of taxi app， car-renting app and car sharing app.

Outside the U.S.， Uber only works with car renting companies. Therefore， yongche.com is its direct competitor in China. The vice president of yongche. com said in October 2013 that “the high-end car renting area where Uber is in is hard to get into. It will take Uber some time to get into China. So it will not have face-to-face confrontation with yongche.com.” Now， the confrontation has begun.

But Uber is still a newcomer in China and the pursuer of yongche.com. Presently， Uber still has a simple target market and a small quantity of cars， even though most of the cars under its management are luxury cars， such as Benz E-class， Audi A6 and BMW5.

The core competitiveness of Uber is considered to be “service”. The car drivers have received special training of the app and courtesy. They will help passengers place the luggage. Inside the car there are drinking water and other added services. But right now yongche. com did very well in this matter as well. Apart from the drinking water， some of its cars have aromatic smell， free WiFi connection and mobile phone charger inside them.

The high-end service means high price. Using Ubers car to drive from Plum Garden to Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou costs 150-200 yuan， twice or three times a much as the taxi. It is known that Uber has adopted two kinds of pricing methods： 0.6 yuan per minute or 2.17 yuan per kilometer in addition to the starting price of 14.5 yuan. In comparison， the starting price of taxi in Guangzhou is 10 yuan and further cost is 2.6 yuan per kilometer.endprint

Experience of Uber： need to be more localized

The Chinese version of Uber app is more like a simple copy of the English version with the words translated into Chinese. The user interface and the process of use do not tally with the habits of Chinese users. This needs to be localized.

Presently， if you use its Chinese name “You Bu”， you cannot find the app in AppStore. Afer downloading the Uber app， the process of registration is far from being friendly. After inputting the mobile phone number， email address and password， users are also required to enter “first name” and “family name” respectively to complete the registration. Obvisouly， this was designed for westerners.

The more troublesome part comes with the process of binding your account with your credit card or Alipay account. Since Ubers profits come from sharing the fees of using cars paid by the passengers， it must have the links of users calling and using cars grasped by itself. Therefore， users are required to bind their accounts with at least one credit card or the Alipay account with the function of withholding overseas commissions to pay for Uber America. Only in that way can they call for the service of using cars. The binding process is very complicated.

During the use of the app， the search function is not feasible yet. A full name of the destinations must be entered since the key word cannot be used to find the results the users want. How to choose the place for aboard and drop-off is still very confusing. After ordering a car， the user cannot contact the driver directly before meeting them. The server problem causes the stagnancy in downloading maps and searching for cars with WiFI connection.

The after service is also very important. Presently， the Uber app only provides the links to Twitter （not available in China）， email and SMS. It has no official Microblog， hotline and others which are more likely to be accepted by Chinese users.

Maybe Uber targets foreigners living or working in China at least. Since yongche.com does not have an English version， Uber is of course a good choice for the foreigners， of whom there are some with the need of high-class cars. If Uber wants to recruit more Chinese users， it needs to improve the app experience， change the registration and using process and make it more localized. This needs Uber to build localized teams of products and technologies. Presently， most of employees working for Uber in China are responsible for operation and community.endprint

The challenges in the Chinese market

As said before， Uber has to face a lot of challenges in the app， process， service and team. In addition， the competition is already very furious there.

The taxi app market in China met a storm of integration and restructuring. The battle between Tecent and Alibaba in the mobile payment tools has extended its influence to the taxi app market. Didi and Kuaidi have become the double oligarchies in the market of taxi app. Each of them has 40 million users. In order to extend their own business and help the giants – Tecent and Alibaba –they rely on， the two companies are very likely to penetrate into the field of car renting and calling with the support of the capital.

There is also the pattern of car sharing， which connects the owners of private cars and passengers. In some situations it can replace Uber， which is hard to bring other patterns in the U.S.， such as car borrowing， into China.

If Uber touches the low-end market， it will definitely have influence over the taxi industry， which has subtle relations with the local authorities. If it chooses to connect the private car owners to passengers， it might become a convenient tool for the drivers of illegal taxi， which are commonly called “black cars” in China. The “black cars” are what the Chinese public security department hates the most and thus no assistance is allowed even though it is not provided on purpose. The taxi calling？ It has already been controlled by Didi and Kuaidi.

The unfamiliarity with the Chinese market and the failure to get used to it are going to haunt Uber as they did to many foreign companies in China. China is different from other countries and different places in China have their own characteristics， such as the administrative regulation. Uber CEO once said that they would deal with every government with great caution， but the transportation rules in different places of China are still strange and unfamiliar to Uber， because it is still quite small in this country.

Taxi calling， car sharing， car using， P2P car renting， traditional car renting and car service， there are more and more apps related to the cars. There are not so many opportunities left for the foreigner Uber. But its idea of “using cars means service” is worth learning for the car apps in China. Apart from products and prices， the service could of course bring more joys and surprises to users， who will improve the fame with words of mouth. This is the natural way of development for a company， much better and more reliable than relying on investment and subsidies.endprint