Didi Chuxing was founded in 2012. It began in China as Didi Dache, a smartphone service for ordering taxis.
The company was created by Cheng Wei, a former Alibaba executive, amid China’s rapid growth in mobile payments and smartphone use. Its early service focused on connecting passengers with licensed taxis rather than immediately offering the broad range of private-car services associated with Didi today.
Didi’s later identity came from consolidation. In 2015, Didi Dache merged with rival Kuaidi Dache, creating Didi Chuxing. The combined company expanded into private-car bookings and other forms of urban transportation while competing aggressively with Uber in China. In 2016, Didi acquired Uber’s China operations, giving it a dominant position in that market.
A frequent mistake is treating 2015—the year of the Didi Dache–Kuaidi merger—as the company’s founding year. The corporate name and structure changed over time, but the business traces its origin to 2012, when Didi Dache was established.