China car-hailing app eyes going public

Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing is mulling an initial public offering, a report said Monday, after US technology giant Apple invested $1 billion in the rival to Uber.

Didi is "targeting" a listing in New York next year, Bloomberg News said, citing unnamed people "familiar with the matter".

The exact timing would depend on how its battle with US-based Uber goes in China, the sources were quoted as saying.

Didi denied having such intentions at present. "We do not have IPO plans as of now," a company spokeswoman told AFP.

Apple on Friday announced it had invested $1 billion in Didi in what the Chinese firm called the single largest investment it had ever received.

Didi Chuxing, formerly known as Didi Kuaidi, claims to have almost 90 percent of the Chinese ride-hailing market with nearly 300 million registered passengers and more than 11 million rides a day.

Didi and Uber are locked in a war of attrition for drivers and riders in the world's second-largest economy, and both have deep pockets. 

Didi is in the process of raising about $3 billion, including Apple’s investment, which has swelled the company’s valuation to about $26 billion, the Bloomberg News report said. 

The company also has backing from Chinese Internet behemoths Tencent and Alibaba.

Didi invested in Uber's US rival Lyft last year, along with Alibaba and Tencent, and announced last month that it would cooperate with it to compete with Uber on its own turf.

Uber, which has received funding from Chinese search firm Baidu along with state-owned Citic Securities, has said it wants to delay its listing plans as long as possible, Bloomberg News reported.