Last year, more than 100 million people across 400 cites in China hailed 1.43 billion "taxi" rides using a mobile application, which used 14 million cars that it did not own to provide the service.

The cars were provided by individuals to Didi Chuxing, a Beijing-based ride-hailing technology firm.

This is a classic example of the so-called sharing economy, in which people rent out their idle assets like cars and rooms to others using Internet-based services.