China raids Uber offices
Authorities in southern city of Guangzhou seize mobile phones during raid
Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou have raided the local office of online taxi-hailing service Uber, on suspicion of "unlicensed operation".
"The company is suspected of unlicensed operation and conducting illegal business by allowing private car owners to offer taxi services," an official with the city's traffic authority told Xinhua.
A number of mobile phones were seized in the raid.
The official said Uber was not specifically targeted, as the raid was part of a broader crackdown on illegal taxi services by private drivers.
Uber is a comparative latecomer in China, where mobile taxi-hailing app users are set to triple to 45m by 2015 compared with 2013, according to Chinese research firm iResearch.
Domestic firms Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache, backed by tech giants Alibaba and Tencent respectively, control 90pc of the market. The two said in February they would merge.
Uber operates in 250 cities in 50 countries but has attracted criticism from traditional taxi firms and associations, who see it as undermining their business model.
Its offices in Paris were raided by police in March in connection with an investigation of its smartphone application, which allows users to rent cars driven by non-professional drivers.
New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission recently revealed that there are more Uber cars in the city than the iconic yellow cabs.
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