Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

Presumably many students are on their way back to their hometown during the Spring Festival, and those who do not get their tickets have turned to high-priced air tickets, online ride-hailing and other "curve-saving" ways to go home.

The world's largest annual migration has also created a spring robbery on the ride-hailing platform.

On the one hand, the largest share of Didi intercity ride business has not yet recovered normally, giving other online appointment platforms such as Didi and Hello also take advantage of the rise to seize market share, which also makes the 2020 online contract market full of uncertainty.

At the same time, the special nodes of the Spring Festival and the news of the epidemic have also caused a lot of hidden dangers to online car-hailing travel. Coupled with the reduced desire of drivers to get out during the holiday period, the phenomenon of difficult and expensive taxis is repeated once again. The rental ride-hailing operation has also been interviewed because of the temporary introduction of the thank-you fee module.

All in all, during the Spring Festival, travel becomes more complex and more important. The change of the ride-hailing platform may also be brewing in it.

The Spring Festival Triple Variations in the ride-hailing market

The reason why it is called a change is that for a long time, with the ebb of capital, the ride-hailing market has become increasingly quiet. Didi, which has the largest market share, is struggling with public security, privacy and other public opinion issues. Meituan, Cao Cao and others are attacking the share of second-and third-tier cities, and Didi carpool is also afraid to move rashly, and easy-to-reach word-of-mouth legends have long been scattered in the north wind.

In addition to the frozen market pattern, urban people also feel solidified by high fares. The ebb of capital has also led to the collapse of the "sharing economy" smashed by the platform with "loss subsidies". Coupled with the heavy restrictions imposed by the policy on the commercial operation of private cars and the place where drivers belong, private cars which were originally effective in driving down the price of online car-hailing have gone out of the tide.

According to public data from Didi, 11.66 million ride-hailing drivers earned income on the Didi platform in 2019, of which 51.5 percent were migrant workers. Compared with the previous 26 million registered drivers of Didi, there are about 15 million fewer drivers. With the substantial reduction in transport capacity and the demand for profit of the platform, the taxi-hailing fee is getting higher and higher under the intersection of the two carriages.

Whether it is other ride-hailing platforms, or consumers themselves, are looking forward to a "dare to call the sun and moon for a new day" change.

The Spring Festival is such an opportunity.

First, the demand for returning home for the Spring Festival has activated the long-silent hitchhiking market. Not only platforms such as Didi and Hello are eager to try to capture the market, but private car sharing information on platforms such as Xianyu, Weibo, QQ Group and 58 has also increased significantly. Big data, who travels on Didi, predicts that during the Spring Festival travel season, the demand for Didi platform is expected to exceed 68 million times, carrying about 3 billion passengers. The "sharing economy" has re-emerged.

Secondly, the shrinking capacity of taxis during the Spring Festival tests the level of platform operation and business ethics. With the professionalization of ride-hailing, cruise ride-hailing in the city is often dominated by migrant workers, the Spring Festival will inevitably lead to a decline in transport capacity, how to solve the problem is also the possibility of loose market pattern. For example, in the Spring Festival open letter of Didi in 2020, in order to solve the problem of insufficient taxi capacity, it decided to start raising prices, while Meituan introduced an additional thank-you fee module during the Spring Festival travel season in Shanghai, which once aroused public dissatisfaction.

At the same time, the Spring Festival also puts forward higher requirements for the safety of online travel. The ride home during the Spring Festival is a more test of trust among people than usual. After all, safely returning home for reunion is the first meaning of the Spring Festival. Some drivers said that if they were asked about hitchhiking passengers on Xianyu's platform, he would also open each other's sesame credit score to determine whether it was reliable. "it's not easy for everyone to go home," and platforms that take more sound measures on security are undoubtedly easier to choose, and there are even data showing that orders for Didi rides rose frantically when Didi hitchhikers stopped running.

From being a big family to letting a hundred flowers blossom, in this festival of bidding farewell to the New year and welcoming the New year, the travel market has also begun a long-lost struggle for spring.

The brave fight against the dragon: the uncertain factor of the "spring robbery" of online car-hailing.

At present, we have seen a lot of forces promoting the reform of the travel market. Can they really be transformed into a "crustal movement"? Three premises may need to be considered:

1. The festive rise and fall of hitchhiking demand.

It can be made clear that the sudden increase in inter-city hitchhiking capacity is mainly closely related to the need to return home, and even some drivers "happen to have seats available to drive home together, not to make money, but to share the fuel fee and toll together." It is obvious that both sides do not have the consideration and necessity of long-term retention, and then compare the large-scale market movements of the free ride platform. For example, if Hello launched the 80 million "Spring Festival Transportation Fund" to encourage drivers and passengers to use the platform to take a ride, which includes 10, 000 free places for passengers, 10, 000 fuel incentives for car owners, subsidies for smart users, and so on, will it be just a futile effort? Or the prelude to grabbing market share on a massive scale? I'm afraid we need another 2020 to solve our doubts.

two。 Policy bundling of public infrastructure.

With the absolute market advantage of the current shared travel platform in the core area, to some extent, it also undertakes the basic service function of public travel, so the pure market operation means are bound to be supervised and restricted by policy. For example, Meituan's "thank you fee" was interviewed by the Shanghai Consumer Insurance Commission as "suspected of violating the right to fair trade" shortly after it was launched, and finally chose to go offline. In this case, the ride-hailing platform can not make use of information asymmetry and market-adjusted bidding means to achieve "overtaking". To seek a deeper management concept has become the direction that all platforms need to explore.

3. The gap between price incentive and driver's income.

Since phased operation means can not effectively encourage private cars to join, can the income and work willingness of full-time ride-hailing drivers be guaranteed by raising prices during the Spring Festival? The answer is no. On the one hand, the special significance of the Spring Festival, even full-time drivers will have the idea that family reunion is better than several times the salary; and the current contradiction between lower income of drivers and expensive taxis by users is mainly due to the fact that the proportion of 10-20% of the platform is getting higher and higher, and that the proportion of 10-20% is not uncommon, which will change from a phenomenal career of driving to "coolie work". As long as the business model of the platform does not change, the continuous reduction of transport capacity will be a long-term trend.

From this point of view, since the online ride-hailing platform has changed from daily subsidy to almost bankruptcy, it has become a fate that the young dragon slayer has become the magic dragon of his sword since it is now difficult and expensive to take a taxi.

Please answer 2020: when the ride-hailing takes off the Lord of the Rings

If we say that capital is the "Lord of the Rings" that the ride-hailing market has approached and worn on its own initiative, it has activated a series of rejection reactions, including over-subsidized competition.

According to the China Unicorn report: 2019 released by Evergrande Research Institute, Didi, a famous unicorn in the automobile transportation industry, is valued at $45 billion, down $15 billion from last year's valuation of $60 billion. Cheng Wei, CEO of Didi, has also said publicly that Didi has not made a profit since 2012, with a cumulative loss of 39 billion yuan for six years. "although we received some Take Rate, most of it was returned in the form of passenger subsidies and driver subsidies, so Didi has been losing money."

Capital ebb, to meet the platform is their own lack of hematopoietic capacity of the survival crisis. Once desperate, it will be a public crisis of security risk loopholes.

So, after taking off the "Lord of the Rings" of capital, what weapons should the ride-hailing platform rely on to continue to move forward? In our eyes, technology is of course the most valuable treasure to bet on.

First of all, to improve transport capacity through technical means is far better than a simple price increase to solve practical problems.

Long before Meituan launched the "thank you" program, Didi achieved more efficient operations with the help of its own data platform and machine algorithms through "simultaneous calls", "customized Spring Festival subsidies" and "Spring Festival travel guides". The success rate of taxi hailing will be stable at more than 66%, basically meeting the needs of Spring Festival travel.

In addition, in addition to our own platform, the mapping tool that integrates multiple services has also become an important traffic portal for ride-hailing. If you want to pry this rich mine, you need to combine the use scene of map users to achieve real-time and complete docking of local life, travel resources, technical interfaces and so on. For example, Baidu Maps launched an overseas service in 2016 and launched an online ride-hailing aggregation platform. One-click cooperation between Ctrip's overseas car-hailing and Baidu's overseas business has become one of its important means of cash.

In short, the travel market, which has experienced a frozen period, has returned to public view and triggered controversy this Spring Festival, which is not a sign that new opportunities have emerged. Here, I also wish you all red envelopes for the Spring Festival, which can be found as soon as you take a taxi.

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