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Uber's China unit currently operates in almost 20 cities,
Kalanick said at an event in Beijing held by Uber investor Baidu
Inc <BIDU.O>.
The speech comes a day after Kalanick said the China unit had
raised $1.2 billion during ongoing fundraising, while people
familiar with the matter told Reuters that larger local rival
Didi Kuaidi had brought in $3 billion.
The two firms are spending heavily to subsidize rides and gain
market share, betting on China's Internet-linked transport
market becoming the world's biggest and most lucrative.
"When we started this year, we were about one percent market
share. Today, nine months later, we're looking at about 30 to 35
percent market share", Kalanick said. He did not specify whether
that market was for all ride-hailing services including taxis,
where Didi Kuaidi dominates, or just for private cars.
Uber also welcomes new regulations expected later this year
governing ride-hailing services in China, Kalanick said.
At the event, Baidu, China's Internet search leader,
demonstrated a voice-operated artificial intelligence smartphone
assistant for finding nearby offline services, which could also
control a robot reminiscent of Disney's WALL-E.
After the Baidu slot, Kalanick spoke of the importance of Uber's
relationship with the Internet firm.
"We can get introductions to the city governments, the
government officials that want to shepherd our kind of
innovation and our kind of progress into their cities," he said.
During the speech, Kalanick adopted the language of Chinese
officialdom, riffing on favored Communist Party subjects such as
harmony and stability.
"Progress is something we see the government be incredibly open
to, whether it be about more jobs and less pollution, less
congestion on the streets, better utilization of infrastructure,
that kind of progress always has to be in harmony with stability
and that is one of the big things that we partnered with the
government on," he said.
(Reporting by Jake Spring; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by
Kazunori Takada and Christopher Cushing)
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