Apple's $1B investment in Didi Chuxing is a balance of both ? an insignificant dollar amount (at least to Apple) that potentially opens up transformative opportunities longerterm.
In the near to medium term opportunities include better integration of Apple products (CarPlay, Music, Pay), and Apple learning more about China and services business models. Long term, if Apple chooses to launch a car, it can go to market as hardware-as-a-service instead of through traditional dealerships. An Apple autonomous car fleet paired with a leading (~87% market share in China) car sharing service creates a large addressable market.
Apple has said China will soon be its largest market. US mobile services has proven a winner take all market, while share in China is more fragmented. Apple has 90% of its cash sitting overseas with a 30%+ cash tax hit if it brings the cash home to invest in
a US company, making an international investment cheaper for investors even at the same or higher valuation.
Finally, roughly 150M US adults do not own an iPhone but that number is 400M adults in urban China. A successful shared mobility strategy could increase both Apple?s wallet share of existing customers and share of the remaining population in China ? particularly if what would likely be an expensive vehicle is made more affordable through a shared platform.
