It was hard not to read into the songs Lyft chose to kick off its press event announcing a new partnership with the Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Kuaidi in New York City today: Florence and the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over,” La Roux’s “Bulletproof,” and Rihanna’s “We Found Love” (chorus: “We found love in a hopeless place”). The songs said a mouthful about the apparent intention behind this partnership: in an Uber world, they’ll be stronger if they stand together.

Today, the two companies said they planned to link their apps together such that Lyft users traveling in China will be able to hail Didi drivers from the Lyft app, and Didi users in the US will be able to snag a Lyft. The partnership, set to go live early next year, appears to be a subtle admission from both companies that Uber is winning the global ride-hailing race; the only way to stop Uber’s exponential growth, it seems, is to join forces.

(The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that Lyft and Didi are in talks with fellow transportation apps Ola in India and GrabTaxi in Singapore, though Lyft co-founder John Zimmer declined to comment on other partnerships today.)

Coming Together

The Didi-Lyft union comes about a week after the Journal reported that Didi Kuaidi had joined fellow Chinese tech titans Alibaba and Tencent as an investor in Lyft. San Francisco-based Lyft confirmed the investment today during a press conference where Zimmer said the partnership offered the “best way to provide a seamless experience for our community and Didi’s when they travel.”

China, of course, is the market Uber is most actively pursuing these days—Uber CEO Travis Kalanick says his company plans to spend $1 billion expanding into China. Uber has received investments from another Chinese juggernaut, Baidu, as it eyes this aggressive expansion.

Consolidation in the ride-hailing industry has always been an expectation, if not a given. Uber is not only one of the largest companies in the space. It’s one of the largest, best-funded, startups in the world. While most analysts expected that consolidation to happen through a series of acquisitions, this partnership is a type of consolidation, nonetheless. It gives Lyft users access to rides in 360 cities in China without having to spend $1 billion it doesn’t have on marketing. “It was an easy choice for us,” says Zimmer.

Country Champions

For Didi, the venture marks the company’s first major international expansion. But in her comments today, Didi President Jean Liu suggested that the partnership was only the first of what could be many more between her company and what she referred to as “country champions.” She emphasized the complexity of operating ride-hailing companies in foreign countries, a fact that Uber has come to learn the hard way via shutdowns and protests in India, France, Spain, and elsewhere.

Expanding abroad, Liu said, requires “local expertise and deep understanding of passengers and the riders.” By joining forces, she says, Lyft and Didi acquire not just customers, but expertise as well.

Together, Liu said, she believes the two companies can help solve the global challenge of transportation.

That is, as long as they can handle a global challenger like Uber.