Didi Kuaidi, China's largest mobile-based ride-on-demand service provider, said it is expanding its private-car hailing services to more than 400 cities in the next three months, putting in place what it claims is the largest ride-sharing network in the world.

The private-car hailing service is already available in 259 Chinese cities, and profitable in 100 of those, including Xiamen, Fujian province and Linyi in Shandong province, said Stephen Zhu, its vice-president of corporate strategy.

"We hope to make the service available in 400 cities by Chinese Lunar New Year, in February 2016," he said.