Halleluiah, traveling about town just got so much easier! Owners of Uber China and Didi Chuxing have this month set about testing the taxi hailing APP’s English interface. Somewhat suspicious when I used the app the other day; it opened in English. Yes, you read correctly; everything was in English. I put it to the test by entering some obscure places I knew and, somewhat incredibly, all streets were found, all in English/pinyin.
Not only is Didi introducing an English interface but they are allowing payments from international credit cards as well. “So far, Didi has only translated part of its interface, leaving the payments page still in Chinese. Still, features such as the search results, and destinations as well as pick-up points are in English, or romanised into pinyin,” said the South China Morning Post.
“An English interface shows it’s trying to meet the market demand by foreign visitors,” said Neil Wang, president of Frost & Sullivan Greater China. “It’s also a beginning for Didi to enter the global market. It is obvious that global expansion is one of its top priorities.” (SCMP)
So presumably, the effort is to eventually move the APP abroad. However, in the meantime this will certainly attract a lot more customers whom still rely heavily on traditional taxis. Having Didi and Uber both in English is a godsend for non-Chinese speakers and in many ways, it is much easier than trying to converse with impatient traditional taxi drivers. All this allows foreigners the freedom and independence they too desire so much.
