Didi is China’s top riding-hailing service. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
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Didi, China’s riding sharing leader, on Thursday took a step toward a U.S. listing that could be one of the year’s largest IPOs.
The offering would test investor interest in China businesses with high revenue growth yet are losing money. Didi reported a $1.6 billion loss in a U.S. IPO filing, on revenue last year of $21.6 billion. The company, which filed under the name Xiaoju Kuaizhi, made a net profit of $837 million in the first quarter of 2021 on revenue of $6.4 billion. However, its loss on operations in the first quarter more than doubled to $1 billion.
Didi serves more than 493 million annual active users on its platform and facilitated 41 million average daily transactions for the 12 months ended March 31, 2021, according to figures in the company’s prospectus. It operates in 15 countries and nearly 4,000 cities,…