Daimler Mobility Services and Geely Group Company, Geely Holding Group’s new business entity, will form a premium ride-hailing joint venture in China. Headquartered in Hangzhou, the 50:50 JV will provide ride-hailing mobility services in several Chinese cities using premium vehicles including but not limited to Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

The fleet initially will include Mercedes-Benz S-Class, E-Class and V-Class and Maybach vehicles and could be supplemented by premium electric vehicles of the Geely Group.

Financial terms and the investment plans of the JV have not been disclosed at this stage. The implementation of the JV is subject to approval by the merger control authorities.

As part of the JV, Geely Group Company and Daimler Mobility Services will be equally represented on the board of the new ride-hailing service, for which the two companies will jointly develop the software infrastructure required to support the business in China.

The joint venture will complement Geely Group company’s and Daimler’s expansion into new mobility services

Geely Holding has launched CaoCao, the Chinese domestic ride-hailing service that currently has more than 17 million registered users, with one million regular active users on the app providing more than 29,000 pure electric vehicles in 28 cities across the country and with more than 360,000 completed trips throughout the country on a daily basis.

With the JV, Daimler Mobility Services will enlarge its global presence. As of 30 September 2018, car2go, moovel as well as mytaxi/Intelligent Apps accounted for 26 million customers. With car2go and Car2Share, Daimler is currently providing free-floating as well as station-based car-sharing services to over 470,000 customers in China who have completed over 20 million kilometers in car-sharing journeys. The proposed JV is another step in the implementation of the Daimler CASE strategy, with its four pillars Connected, Autonomous, Shared & Service and Electric Drive.