(Yicai) Nov. 13 -- Didi Global turned a profit in the three months ended Sept. 30 in its first quarterly profit since 2021, as demand rebounds following a difficult few years during the pandemic, the country’s largest ride-hailing platform said today.

Didi logged net profit of CNY400 million (USD54.8 million) in the third quarter, compared with a net loss of CNY1.8 billion (USD246.8 million) during the same period last year, according to the Beijing-based company’s latest financial report.

Revenue surged 25 percent to CNY51.4 billion (USD7 billion) over the period. Of this, operating revenue in China soared 26.6 percent to CNY46.6 billion and overseas earnings jumped 27.7 percent to CNY2 billion.

“Benefitting from the recovery in domestic demand for mobility services, our businesses have grown steadily in the third quarter as we further strengthened our strategic focus on mobility,” said Chief Executive Officer Will Cheng. The platform is making good progress in exploring new opportunities in the areas of autonomous driving and international business.

The Didi core platform’s gross transaction value soared 36.7 percent to CNY91.5 billion (USD12.5 billion) in the third quarter year on year. There were 2.9 billion transactions in China, a gain of 32 percent, and 701 million overseas, an increase of 42.5 percent.

It is a significant turnaround from recent years when the ride-hailing platform haemorrhaged CNY49.3 billion (USD6.7 billion) in 2021 and CNY23.8 billion (USD3.2 billion) in 2022.

“We plan to engage with our consumers and drivers more actively in the fourth quarter through more effective promotions and more diversified and affordable product offerings,” the firm said.

Didi’s app is now back on app stores and it was allowed to resume new user registrations in January after the company was placed under cybersecurity review for more than a year on suspicion that it had illegally collected user data.

Editor: Kim Taylor