Uber Losing a High-Stakes Battle in China

Thanks to a burgeoning middle class and an economy that has blossomed in the past decade (recent stumbles aside), China is widely viewed by many companies as the next frontier for growth — but it's not easy, and it's not cheap. A couple months ago, Kalanick confessed that his company's efforts to grow in China were costing him about $1 billion a year, a revelation he later tried to tamp down in an interview with Reuters. "If you took our top 30 cities today, today they're generating over $1 billion in profit a year, just our top 30 cities. And that profit multiplies every year because we're growing," he said. "So that helps us to sustainably invest in our Chinese efforts … Because of the profits we have globally, this is something we can do for the long run."