NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Ride-hailing firms including China's Didi Kuaidi, GrabTaxi in Southeast Asia, India's Ola and U.S.-based Lyft have formed a global ridesharing partnership, strengthening their challenge to Uber in major markets.
The transportation needs of a large and growing population in Asia have fuelled the rise of local taxi-hailing services in the region but they are facing stiff competition from Uber.
From the first quarter of 2016, the four companies will share resources to allow international travellers to access local rides by using the same app they use at home, they said in a statement on Friday.
Rival Uber, backed by investment bank Goldman Sachs, operates in over 60 countries and people can use the same application to book rides globally.
Didi, backed by Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding , already has a stake in Lyft, GrabTaxi and Ola. Japan's SoftBank Group is also an investor in each of the firms except Lyft.
(Reporting by Aditi Shah; Editing by Keith Weir)
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