Chinese mobility app DiDi is increasing its investments in Peru. It recently announced that it will invest an additional USD 2 million in the second half of 2023, on top of the USD 8 million promised in June. The goal is to increase the number of drivers and motorcyclists by at least 30 percent and virtually double the volume of passengers in the three Peruvian cities where it operates: Lima, Cusco, and Arequipa.
In early 2023, Didi underwent an internal reorganization, laying off hundreds of workers in Mexico, Peru, Chile, and Brazil — its largest market, where it operates under the brand 99. Twenty percent of its employees worldwide were let go. Now, it appears to be investing again.
In its second-quarter results, released in early September, DiDi said that after hitting the brakes in the first half of the year, it would “step up its investment in consumer incentives and marketing expenses to continue to drive growth in its international business.” When the company talks about international markets, it mainly means Latin America.
The company does not disclose the exact number of partners or passengers it has in Peru, but says that from December 2020, when it arrived in the country, until early October this year, 3.5 million Peruvians have used its app.
Since its debut in Peru, DiDi has seen Uber abandon its food delivery vertical in the country — leaving Rappi as its main rival in the segment — and the arrival of new competitors such as InDrive.
Part of the investment will go to food delivery. The platform intends to triple the number of users of DiDi Food, which already serves 6,000 restaurants — a number close to the 7,000 businesses served by Rappi. However, Didi still lacks the reach of the Colombian unicorn, which is present in ten Peruvian cities.
To compete with InDrive — an app that allows passengers and drivers to negotiate a price for each trip — DiDi recently launched DiDi Flex in some of its Latin American markets, including Peru, which allows the same practice.
Clearly, the company sees potential in the Peruvian market that it does not see in other Latin American countries. In addition to the layoffs earlier in the year, DiDi announced that it would cease operations of DiDi Food in Chile. The service had launched in the country in April 2022. At the time, it justified the decision by saying that it needed to focus and invest more in the mobility vertical.
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