China's Didi touts tech spending ahead of Wall St debut

Chinese ride-hailing service Didi says it lost $5.5 billion over the past three years, but ahead of its U.S. stock market debut on Wednesday it is highlighting its global reach and investments in developing electric and self-driving cars

BEIJING -- Chinese ride-hailing service Didi says it lost $5.5 billion over the past three years ahead of its U.S. stock market debut Wednesday but it's highlighting its global reach and investments in developing electric and self-driving cars. The Beijing-headquartered company operates in 16 countries but almost 90% of the 493 million customers who used the service at least once in the past year are in China. Didi Global Inc. planned to raise up to $4 billion by selling 288 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange at $13-$14 each. It said 30% will be spent on technology development, another 30% to expand outside China and 20% on new products. The company founded in 2012 by Will Wei Cheng, a veteran of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, says it aims to become the “world’s largest one-stop transportation platform” and operator of vehicle networks.