????去年12月，從打車應用公司Uber泄露出來的文件顯示，全球每周已有80萬人次通過Uber進行叫車服務。我們可以肯定地說，這個數字現在又增長了不少。

????但是不管它增長了多少，Uber的業務量與它在中國的主要競爭對手“快的打車”相比還是略顯蒼白。快的在中國以外幾乎沒有什么知名度，但是據說它的業務量每天最多能達到600萬人次。因此從某種角度上來看，中國的電商巨頭阿里巴巴投資的“快的打車”和騰訊公司投資的“嘀嘀打車”（嘀嘀的規模和業務量據說和快的差不多）才是打車應用程序界真正的王者。

????39歲的連續創業者、快的打車的聯合創始人喬?李（譯音）表示：“這種交通服務在中國很有前途，目標市場非常非常大。”

????要指出的是，快的打車的業務模式和Uber不太一樣。快的打車應用程序現在已經擁有1億名用戶，不過它最主要的用途是用來在300多個中國最擁堵的城市里叫出租車。公司本身并不從中抽成，這款叫車應用程序也只不過是一個招攬用戶的工具。

????然而隨著時間的推移，快的打車也希望利用“免費增值”模式，通過其龐大的用戶群賺錢。今年夏天，快的在20個城市推出了豪車租用服務，可以說是針鋒相對地與Uber的高端租車服務進行競爭。最終，快的打車希望將業務拓展到拼車、導游和快遞服務領域，而這些也正是大多數交通類應用都虎視眈眈的領域。

????那么，快的是如何在短短兩年內，從零發展到1億名用戶，并擁有了100萬名司機的呢？喬?李表示這要歸功于中國特色——大城市交通擁堵，公共交通網絡不完善，再加上有大量價格相對便宜的出租車，為這種叫車服務提供了得天獨厚的條件。

????另外補貼也起了一定幫助。為了擴展其網絡，快的允許用戶向出租車發送“愿意支付小費”的信息。這個簡單的功能很快吸引來了大批司機，同時它也使乘車者的人數大幅增加，因為它解決了一個重要的問題：在很多城市，尤其是在高峰時段和惡劣天氣時，對出租車的需求都超過了供給。喬?李表示：“我們用這個簡單的功能推動了它的整體發展。”后來快的打車還為司機提供了另一項激勵。如果使用快的打車應用程序內嵌的支付寶功能支付的話，公司會額外補貼1美元。

????快的打車已經獲得了超過1億美元的融資，該公司還表示，它已經擁有了一個100萬名司機的龐大網絡。騰訊公司投資的嘀嘀打車也通過提供補貼，培養起了一個規模差不多的網絡。快的和嘀嘀的互相較勁的補貼競爭已經升級成了價格大戰，最終出錢的還是雙方背后的大佬——阿里巴巴和騰訊。

????Uber明顯是作為一個弱者進入這個市場的，不過CEO特拉維斯?卡拉尼克表示，他很享受這個位置。

????本周一，卡拉尼克在舊金山參加TechCrunch Disrupt峰會時表示：“我們必須要做小家伙，對我來說這就像回家一樣。”

????In December, leaked Uber documents showed that the company was completing about 800,000 rides a week around the world. It’s a safe bet that the number is much higher now.

????No matter how big it has gotten, however, Uber’s ride volume pales in comparison with the numbers of rides of its main Chinese rival, Kuaidi. That company, little known outside of China, is claiming up to 6 million rides every day. That makes Kuaidi, which is backed by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, or perhaps rival Didi Taxi (which is backed by Tencent Holdings and boasts of a similar scale and footprint), the world’s king of the ride-hailing apps at least by some measures.

????“This kind of transportation service has a big future in China,” says Joe Lee, a 39-year-old serial entrepreneur who is the co-founder of Kuaidi. “The addressable market is very very big.”

????To be sure, Kuaidi’s model is different from that of Uber. Its app, which counts 100 million users, is used mostly to hail taxis in some 300 of China’s notoriously congested cities. The company makes no money from those rides, and the hailing app is nothing more than a tool to acquire customers.

????Over time, however, Kuaidi is hoping to monetize its giant customer base with what it calls a “freemium” model. This summer, Kuaidi launched a luxury limo service in 20 cities that competes directly with Uber’s high-end black cars. Eventually, it plans to extend into the kind of ride-sharing, courier and delivery services that appear to be on the sights of most transportation startups.

????So how did Kuaidi go from zero to 100 million users, and a staggering 1 million drivers, in just two years? Lee says China’s characteristics—large, congested cities with poor public transit networks and massive fleets of relatively inexpensive taxis—were tailor-made for this kind of service.

????Subsidies helped too. To expand its network, Kuaidi let customers signal to taxis that they would add a tip to their fares. That simple feature quickly lured drivers, but it also dramatically expanded the number of riders, as it solved a critical issue: at rush hour and during bad weather, demand for taxis exceeds supply in many cities. “We used that simple function to kick-start the whole thing,” Lee says. Since then, Kuaidi added another incentive for drivers. On transactions that go through Alipay, a very popular payment service in China that is built into the Kuaidi app, the company will add an additional $1.

????Kuaidi, which has raised more than $100 million, now claims 1 million drivers on its network. Didi has also grown its network to similar size by subsidizing rides. The competing subsidies have led to a ruthless price war that is essentially financed by Kuaidi’s and Didi’s biggest backers, Alibaba and Tencent.

????Uber is entering this market as a clear underdog, a position that CEO Travis Kalanick says he relishes.

????“We get to be the little guy,” Kalanick said on Monday during the TechCrunch Disrupt technology conference in San Francisco. “For me that’s like homecoming.”