Meituan launches car-hailing service in Shanghai

SHANGHAI - China's leading online lifestyle platform Meituan launched its own car-hailing service in Shanghai Wednesday.

Meituan, an online platform for ordering food, buying movie tickets and booking restaurants, obtained a license to provide car-hailing service include taxi and ride sharing in the city in June 2017.

According to city regulations, all vehicles and drivers should obtain a permit and register their information for supervision. The app must not tell drivers the destinations of passengers before they pick them up, and no in-app price markups are allowed.

Meituan is now in direct competition with Didi Chuxing, which completed 7.43 billion rides for 450 million users in over 400 cities in 2017.

Meituan plans car-hailing service in several other cities, including Chengdu, Hangzhou and Xiamen.