Didi Chuxing Plans to Launch Services in Costa Rica

According to Reuters, a recruitment notice released by Didi has shown that the company is preparing to launch services in Costa Rica in Central America. The move marks the company’s first expansion into Central America.

A recruitment advertisement on LinkedIn shows that Didi is recruiting a manager for its car-hailing business in Costa Rica. The notice says, “You will have the opportunity to work in a tight team, where you will launch, build and run DiDi’s business in (Central) America and (the) Caribbean.” According to Former Uber executive Gonzalo Araujo, Costa Rica is also an important regional center for Uber, and doing business in this country will give Didi the opportunity to attract more talent away from its competitors.

SEE ALSO: What Does Uber’s IPO Mean for Didi? The War for Global Mobility Dominance

DiDi’s global expansion strategy has been powered by domestic labor. In June this year, DiDi officially entered Chile and Colombia. Tens of thousands of local DiDi drivers joined the business whether it’s in the Colombian capital of Bogota or Chile’s second largest urban center, Valparaiso. Chile and Colombia are the third and fourth Latin American countries that DiDi has entered after Brazil and Mexico.

DiDi’s expansion in Latin America might cause a headache for tech giant Uber, which still controls a larger market share in Latin American. For instance in Mexico, Uber’s services have covered more than 30 cities, serving as many as 7 million users. As of August last year, Uber gained 87% of the market share in Mexico, which is the country with the largest Uber share in Latin America. Apart from that, the company has operations in Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.