The mobile-enabled global transportation industry has a new entrant - Apple.
Didi Chuxing (formerly Didi Kuaidi) has confirmed a $1 billion investment from Apple as part of its latest funding round, adding that this is the biggest ever single investment the company has received.
Didi's total funding to date is around $4.4 billion, according to its Crunchbase entry.
Apple joins some of the world's biggest businesses which have already taken a stake in Didi, including Chinese internet giants Alibaba and Tencent and Japan's Softbank.
The move is being widely reported in the mainstream and business press in terms of Apple investing in "Uber's rival" in China. But Didi is so dominant in China, Uber hardly touches the sides - Didi has an 87% share of the private-car hailing market in China and a virtual monopoly on taxi hailing with a 99% share.
In volume terms, more than 11 million rides a day are booked through Didi's platform and its user base is around 300 million. It operates in 400 cities in China.
Apple's move into the taxi-app space in China is interesting in itself, getting a seat at the top table with some very important businesses and investors. But Didi is also a founding member of the global ride-sharing alliance, Rides Everywhere, with US-based Lyft.
Other signed up members of this so-called "anti-Uber" project with Lyft are Ola in India and Grab in southeast Asia. Apple's involvement in this alliance on a global scale will be worth keeping an eye on in the medium-to-long term.
Apple's investment is also interesting in the context of its presence in the world's largest economy. Reports based on Apple's most recent earnings statement noted that sales in China fell year-on-year (although they still came in at more than $12 billion in three months).
Another long-term aside to the deal is autonomous vehicles and the extent to which Apple's investment in transportation is a sign that it is starting to sniff around the self-driving vehicle sector. Lyft for example picked up $500 million from General Motors at the start of the year and said at the time it will "work with GM to build a network of on demand autonomous vehicles."
Didi, which Apple now owns a stake in, owns a stake in Lyft.
Amidst the speculation around how the relationship between Didi's investors will pan out, where does this leave Uber? It's position in China is precarious in light of Didi's dominance and it is reportedly running huge losses.
It does have a couple of pals in the region - Baidu, the other dominant Chinese internet business alongside Didi investees Alibaba and Tencent - announced an investment in Uber and a global strategic co-operation deal at the back-end of 2014.
Uber is also close to conglomerate HNA Group.
And only last week Uber announced a deal with Alibaba-backed digital wallet Alipay allowing account holders to pay for their Uber ride using their Alipay account.
Uber is a global brand and Apple's peripheral and potential involvement in Rides Everywhere via Didi is probably a bigger long-term headache than China.
Related reading from Tnooz:
Ride-sharing tipped to be a $6.5 billion sector by 2020 (April 2016)
Uber links up with airlines, airports and hotels via HNA deal (Jan2016)
Uber’s growth comes with staggering losses (Jan 2016)
Anti-Uber global alliance gets bigger as Ola and GrabTaxi join in (Dec 2015)