Nihon Kotsu as the "Prince of Taxis." The company was founded as a sole proprietorship in 1928 and reorganized as a stock company in December 1945. It began as a limousine operator and expanded to taxi service in 1940. NK operates the most popular taxi hailing mobile application in Japan, Japan Taxi. Toyota invested 500 million yen in the app in 2017, followed by a second 7.5 billion investment in 2018. Tokyo Musen, a major rival of Nihon Kotsu in the Tokyo area, joined the app later that year in an effort to counterbalance foreign rivals such as Uber and Didi Chuxing.
DiDi a $100 million stake in 99 in January 2017, which also gave it the management rights in the app. In the same month, DiDi authorized LEDI Technology Co. as its franchisee to operate taxi-hailing business in Taiwan. February 2018: DiDi launched its new app in Hong Kong, which is an upgraded version of Kuaidi Taxi. The Kuaidi Taxi app had been used since 2015. It was also announced that DiDi will, along with SoftBank Group, begin a venture in Japan. April 2018: DiDi starts operation under its main name in Mexico, their first market outside Asia where operates with this