The taxi app Kuaidi, which is venture backed by Alibaba, now supports Alibaba’s payment solution Alipay in 40 Chinese cities, covering more than 400,000 taxi drivers, according to Alipay. Alipay was integrated into Kuaidi in May 2013.
The payment process with the latest version of Kuaidi has been improved that customers only need to type in taxi fares. Drivers who don’t have Kuaidi app in their smartphones can also take Alipay payments through QRcodes, if customers’ phones have Alipay Wallet app. Alipay Wallet itself will soon have a taxi booking feature, the company disclosed.
To encourage drivers and customers to use Alipay, the payment company rewards 10 yuan (roughly $1.5) for each transaction — Drivers can get cash rewards for up to five transactions each day and customers can enjoy that twice daily.
Kuaidi now has 23 million users across China with 300, 000 daily transactions, according to the company.
Two players, Kuaidi and Didi, stood out of the newly emerged taxi app market thanks to supports from Chinese Internet giants — Didi is backed by Tencent which joined the latest $100 million funding in the app. Didi has been added into Tencent’s hugely popular mobile messaging app WeChat and supports WeChat Payment. Didi is also subsidizing both drivers and customers with 10 yuan for each transaction.
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