Uber officially enters China with Shanghai launch

The U.S.-based transportation network company Uber announced its official launch in China on February 13, 2014, said a PingWest report.

During an event held in Shanghai on Thursday, Uber said that, unlike its American model in which individual drivers register as Uber drivers, it will work with Chenghuan car rental company. According to PingWest's report, Chenghuan will also walk its drivers through training sessions to get them prepared to use the Uber app.

According to an Uber spokesperson, the company is not working exclusively with Chenghuan in Shanghai, but has many partners, just like in other cities it is operating in.
Sam Gellman, Uber's Head of Asia expansion, showcased a graph demonstrating how the taxi demand increase in Shanghai exceeds other world metropolitan cities such as San Francisco, New York, and Singapore.

The report also cited an unnamed source that the reason why Uber didn't choose Beijing as its first foothold in China was because the app could not effectively extract data from Google Map, which hindered its ability to calculate the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA). However, a Uber spokesperson clarified that this was not the case, but instead expansion plans were driven by a number of factors, including hiring.