A new blow lives the industry of mobility applications in Latin America, after Beat announced his departure from the region a few months ago. This time, the Chinese DiDi made the decision to carry out an internal reorganization to face the crisis in the sector.
In recent days, widespread layoffs have been made in the markets of Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Peru, according to sources close to the industry.
Since DiDi Southern Cone, the director of communications Francisca González, confirms the situation in Chile. “As we strive for greater efficiency and value for money for our users, we have made the difficult decision to say goodbye to a small part of our team in Chile.”
However, this goes hand in hand with what was announced in Brazil, where it operates through 99 Taxi and the company has about 800 workers. Although the number of layoffs is unknown, the local press commented that these include professionals in areas such as customer experience, human resources, security, social networks and data analysis.
“We made the difficult decision to carry out an internal reorganization. Unfortunately, this week we had to say goodbye to a group of employees to whom we are extremely grateful for their contributions,” the Chinese firm told the local outlet Metropoles, after carrying out “exhaustive” evaluations to reallocate resources “in all lines of business.”
at the end of last year didi it had made several personnel cuts at the regional level, which comes hand in hand with the crisis that the mobility and technological applications industry is experiencing.
In this sense, González argues that DiDi’s goal has always been to provide affordable services, while providing opportunities for flexible income for your partners. “That requires us to constantly evolve and adapt, just as we did when we brought a new line of business into the country last year with the arrival of DiDi Food, as well as the continuous security improvements we have made within our platforms.” , he emphasizes.
Beat closes operations in Latin America due to pandemic and in the face of “fierce competition”
food division
Regarding this business, from DiDi they commented to DF that in the Brazilian market, in addition to the cuts in taxi divisionthey decided to close the operations of 99Food, their business line dedicated to the delivery and distribution of food, this in order to “focus on their commitment to the mobility of the country.”
Along with this, they explained that “this decision does not reflect the operation in the six countries served by DiDi Food in Latin America, where by 2023 the company will seek to expand and strengthen its service.”
Now DiDi Food has operations in more than 90 cities within Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Peru.
To date, the platform has managed to add more than 61,000 active restaurants in the region, of which 81.2% are SMEs.
99 Taxis, from China’s Didi, initiates layoffs in Brazil
crisis in numbers
In 2021, the Chinese firm was investigated in its country, along with 14 other technology companies, for alleged abuse of dominant position in the local market. This caused the exit of Didi from the New York Stock Exchange, five months after its premiere.
To this were added the blows left by the end of the operation of the Greek Beat in Latin America, which led to observe Didi with a magnifying glass and identify that its capitalization reached US$ 15,430 million until last December, which implied a fall more than 34% compared to the US$ 23,730 million it was worth in 2021, according to data from Companies Market Cap.
