Your Money

Mean streets for taxi drivers as high franchise fees bite

Cabbies protesting over unlicensed cabs and services such as Uber

A smartphone shows the two apps, Kuaidi Dache -- part-owned by Alibaba -- and Didi Dache -- backed by Tencent -- which together control 99 percent of China’s domestic market for booking taxis by smartphone. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
A smartphone shows the two apps, Kuaidi Dache -- part-owned by Alibaba -- and Didi Dache -- backed by Tencent -- which together control 99 percent of China’s domestic market for booking taxis by smartphone. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Clifford Coonan's picture
Clifford Coonan
Mon Feb 23 2015 - 22:30

China’s streets are getting meaner for taxi drivers, as the traditional cabbie tries to deal with the new world of taxi-hailing apps while coping with high franchise fees charged by the cab companies who own their cars.

Last month, thousands of taxi drivers took to the streets to complain about these costs.

The costs often mean that they spend the first eight hours of the day working just to pay the franchise costs – in Beijing, where there are 66,000 cabs, this is about 5,000 yuan or €700.

They are protesting against the unlicensed black cabs run by private drivers who don’t pay franchise fees.

READ MORE

While the rest of the world thrills to Uber, China, as usual, has its own approach to private transportation.

Last week saw the country’s two largest taxi-hailing applications, backed separately by arch-rivals Alibaba and Tencent, merge to cope with competition in the sector.

Hangzhou-based Kuaidi Dache (dache means "taxi"), completed an alliance with Beijing-based Didi Dache, on St Valentine's Day, to create China's biggest mobile platform for local transportation, the companies said.

The merged company will have a 99 per cent market share.