China's largest online ride-hailing platform, Didi Chuxing, says it's received 1 billion US dollars from US tech giant Apple. This investment is the single biggest that Didi has ever received. And it makes Apple a strategic investor in the company. Apple's Chief Executive Tim Cook says this move will help the company to understand the Chinese market better.

Didi Chuxing, formerly known as Didi Kuaidi after a merger between two market players. Now it's a network of 14 million car owners and drivers and 11 million daily bookings, boasting nearly 300 million users, in over 400 Chinese cities.

It holds 87 percent of the private car-hailing market in China, about 99 percent share of the country’s taxi-hailing market. Now, the behemoth is given a further booster of cash and confidence from across the pacific ocean, from Apple.

Ye Yun is the public relations supervisor of Didi Chuxing.

"Apple is a lever of tech companies. We respect it very much. We believe that the investment will bring in Apple’s experience in products, technology, management and corporate culture, which will be highly helpful in our future development," Ye said.

It was a deal done within a month. Last month, DIDI's head Liu Qing paid a visit to apple's headquarters in California and met Tim Cook. Liu joked, "all companies that have a name of a fruit will attain phenomenal achievements." She explained DIDI's legal name is "little tangerine". 22 days later, this 1 billion deal was sealed.

"I think Apple has succeeded in that it has a very good ecology in the mobile Internet. Didi Chuxing has also built a very good ecology in the car-hailing travel by using mobile apps. The two companies will definitely deepen their cooperation in product development,"  Liu said.

Analysts say the investment suggests that Apple is placing greater focus on app developers in China, now its second largest market.

Of course, the DIDI app could be an inspiration for the army of apple programmers in the rising tide of mobile Internet.