Domestic ride-hailing provider Didi Chuxing will launch a food delivery business in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu Province on April 1, the Beijing News newspaper reported on Saturday, citing sources.
Didi is recruiting delivery people offering attractive payment and some have already finished their initial training, the report said, citing a Didi rider in Wuxi.
Another Didi rider surnamed Wang in Nanjing, China's Jiangsu Province, told the Global Times on Sunday that he applied for the job via the app called Didi delivery. The pay is much better compared with his former job in Meituan-Dianping, a meal delivery company backed by Tencent.
"My monthly salary was only around 6,000 yuan ($918) when I worked in Meituan's Beijing branch. Since the payment promised by Didi is as much as 10,000 yuan in my hometown Nanjing, I chose to come back," he said.
After logging on to the app of Didi delivery, the Global Times found that only nine Chinese cities are available for delivery staff to choose for now.
When contacted by the Global Times on Sunday, Didi declined to release further details.
Meanwhile, Meituan, the food delivery company that's losing some riders to Didi, has first launched its pilot ride-hailing services in Nanjing on February 14, 2017.
The move has excited many drivers who work on Didi's ride-hailing platform.
Experts said that internet giants in China will sooner or later enter all of the fast-growing industries such as housing, clothing, transportation and food, since they have plenty of money to spend.
"For Didi, the giant in transportation, and Meituan, the leader in food delivery, to enter each other's market is no surprise," Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based industry analyst, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Liu said one of the advantages for Didi is that it can use its existing ranks of drivers to deliver food, in addition to the riders it is now recruiting.
"For example, at lunchtime there's a huge demand for food delivery, which may lead to a shortage of delivery staff. But drivers will be comparatively free, so they can join in the delivery army, compensating for the slowness of food deliveries at peak times," Liu said.
"In the beginning, there will certainly be a 'price war' among food delivery platforms to gain customers and occupy markets," Liu added.
