Uber expects China to be bigger than US in 2016

"You can go to Wuhan and ask some Starbucks barista, they'll know about Uber," Gellman said in a talk at the Hong Kong Science & Technology Park Corporation. "I wouldn't be able to go into a room where so many people haven't used Uber if I do this talk in Guangzhou. Everyone would raise their hand."

Uber faces heavy competition from Didi Kuaidi, the product of a merger between Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache last February, which has raised multiple funding rounds. Last September, the company completed the largest-ever fundraise by an internet start-up globally as the likes of China Investment Corporation, Ping An Ventures, Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings contributed $3 billion.

However, Uber has also raised capital from prominent Chinese investors. Search giant Baidu committed an undisclosed amount in 2014 and participated in a funding round in July worth more than $1.2 billion for a dedicated China unit. The company said in June that it planned to spend more than $1 billion in 2015 on expansion in China.

Along with the support from local investors, Gellman also credited improvements to the customer experience brought by new technology offerings, including refinements to the driver routing systems, along with the sheer volume of drivers that the company has been able to bring to bear.

"For us it's really all about innovating experience, but I think the scale that we've created is one of our key advantages," Gellman said. "In 2013 it took seven minutes to get a ride. Now it takes three minutes. So it's gotten a whole lot faster."

While Didi Kuaidi has made Uber's entry into China more difficult, Gellman noted that having such a resourceful competitor has been a positive experience for the company. He said that despite popular perception in the US that Chinese companies tend to copy others, Uber and Didi Kuaidi have in fact learned a lot from each other.

"You've got to observe the environment around you and realize that there's a ton you don't know," said Gellman. "What's good there is they're very good executors, they're very innovative. Let's learn from this competition and see if that can help Uber all over the world. I don't think a true monopoly benefits anybody."

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