DiDi Still Supporting Users Amid the Pandemic

The Chinese giant announced its new mobility portfolio to support users in Mexico amid the ongoing pandemic and adverse economic conditions. "Mexico has special significance for DiDi, as it is the first country where we launched our service outside of China. Today, we must work together to face the global challenge COVID-19 presents. Our engineers continue to create new products that will help people to move in a safer, more hygienic and more accessible way in the future," explained Jean Liu, DiDi Global's President during a webinar.

Two new products will be launched in Mexico: DiDi Economy and DiDi Protect. The former will have the same standards as the usual DiDi Express service but with cheaper prices durin low-demand hours. Starting on July 6, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. users of DiDi Economy will be able to take trips that start at MX$20 (US$0.89). "This new product will be temporary as it is focused specifically on supporting users through these months of recovery," said Andrés Panamá, Director of Operations at DiDi México. 

DiDi Protect is an additional service launched in partnership with Unilever, in which the service will include special hygiene measures including hygiene products, plastic barriers, unit sanitization and other additional features. DiDi Express, the usual service, will also take into account hygiene standards and will lower by 10 percent lower. 

In addition, the company's food-delivery division also presented a new product: DiDi Food Basics. The product is designed for consumers looking for cheaper food options. Menus in this program will go from MX$50 (US$2.23) to MX$99(US$4.49). "The best we can do to promote sales for restaurants is working with them to create more accessible options that satisfy the daily food needs of new consumers," said Maria Pia Lindley, Operations Lead of Didi Food México North & South.

DiDi has been an active supporter of both users and drivers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, the company launched the DiDi Hero initiative through which the company invested MX$42 million (US$1.77 million) to support health staff in battling COVID-19. In addition, the company supported partner drivers with fixed income programs, as well as economic support should any member of their family got infected.

You can read more about DiDi's supporting programs here.

"We have seen that rides have dropped in some cities between 40 and 50 percent. Definitely this has an impact on margins. However, at this time, our vision is to support the community. We have invested in different initiatives that help the community reduce contagion while keeping partner drivers safe,” said Panamá in an interview with Mexico Business News.

You can read the full interview with Andrés Panamá here.