On January 28, Aurora Big Data, a well-known mobile big data service provider, released the "2021 Q4 Mobile Internet Industry Data Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). The report pointed out that the automobile market recovered significantly in the fourth quarter of last year, while China's automobile sales in 2021 increased by 3.8% year-on-year, ending a three-year downward trend. In this market environment, the automotive information industry has entered a stable state of development, with a penetration rate of 11.7% in the fourth quarter, a slight increase of 2.88% over the same period in 2020.
Unlike the overall automotive information industry, which has entered a stable period, the head company E-Car has still achieved quite eye-catching growth and continues to lead the industry. Aurora data shows that in the mainstream automotive information App, the average value of the E-car series MAU in the fourth quarter was as high as 49.34 million, ranking first in the industry since the fourth quarter of 2020.
At the same time, the new users of the e-car series in the fourth quarter were as high as 28.8 million, close to the sum of the main competitors, the auto home series and the understanding car emperor system. In terms of indicators that reflect user stickiness, the average daily use time of e-car App in this quarter remained ahead, reaching 27.2 minutes, an increase of 35.3% year-on-year, while Autohome and Zhichedi were both less than 20 minutes, down 1.5% and 6% respectively from the same period last year.
The resulting traffic value of e-car traffic has also reached a new high, including the E-car App and the Auto Quotation App, including the E-Car mobile app traffic value of up to 12.65 billion yuan, also ranked first in the industry.
Accelerate integration into Tencent's system and continue to drain within the vertical ecosystem of automobiles
Since the completion of privatization in November 2020, Tencent has officially become the controlling shareholder of eCar, and the two sides have also accelerated their business integration, and by the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, ECar has gradually opened up Tencent's system and established a vertical ecosystem for automobiles.
In the vertical ecosystem, the four core assets of eCar, including content, model library, dealer database and vertical algorithm, are deeply integrated into Tencent's ecology, and its model words, boutique car content, original car videos, and owner services are widely appearing in Tencent's car-related information and service scenarios, including WeChat Search, WeChat Gongge, Video Number, Tencent News, QQ Browser, mobile QQ, etc.
For example, on WeChat, e-car has been fully integrated with WeChat's car content, and the "WeChat Search" model word search result page and WeChat Gongge's travel service - car viewing channel have the content of EasyCar exposed. The content of the car library of e-car is implanted in the tencent news app car channel, and the search for car brand or model name in Tencent news will also enter the e-car page. In addition, the search of QQ browser has also been implanted in the E-car model library, and the two sides are also promoting the implantation of E-car content on small videos and videos including QQ browser and mobile phone QQ about models.
Based on the Tencent ecosystem covering hundreds of millions of users, eCar's content and services have reached a more diversified range of users, providing car owners, prospective owners and ordinary consumers with a full range of services in the field of automobile life.
The data shows that in 2021, e-car reached more than 300 million pan-car users within the vertical ecology of e-cars, which makes Tencent's ecology a massive traffic pool for e-car to pull new and revitalize, and promote the rise of new users and active users of e-car.
The original program has become a resounding business card of China's automobile culture
In fact, e-Car continues to lead the industry in key operational indicators including active users, new users and usage time, which is not unrelated to its long-term and vigorous investment in original car programs.
With the development of China's auto industry, the rising demand for auto culture by consumers, and the decline of traditional automotive content forms such as graphics and forums, head automotive information platforms, including e-car, have paid more and more attention to the production of high-quality original car programs in recent years.
Since 2020, e-Car has established a "content video" strategy, specially established a video program center, and set up a number of studios to produce original high-quality video programs covering different themes such as automobile culture, racing, extreme testing, car play documentary, and professional horizontal evaluation from the points of interest of users. It has successively launched a number of self-made programs with good reputation and broadcast volume, such as "I Am a Driver", "Horsepower Showdown", "Jianghu Car God", "Easy Car Horizontal Review", "Do Whatever You Want" and so on. In 2021 alone, e-car launched 23 programs and 303 programs, and the number of broadcasts of many programs exceeded 10 million, which was praised by car users as "a resounding business card for promoting Chinese automobile culture".
Take the "Yiche Horizontal Evaluation True 100,000 Km Long Test" specifically mentioned in the report as an example, which is a blockbuster original program launched by E-Car at the end of last year, and it is also the first large-scale long test and dismantling program that really carries out 100,000 km long test and dismantling on the whole network.
In order to provide consumers with the most practical and direct reference and guidance for car viewing, car selection and car purchase, EasyCar lasted more than half a year, organized a team of more than 100 people, purchased 19 popular models, and drove for 180 days, so that each car ran for 100,000 kilometers in the real car environment such as urban roads, highways, mountain roads, county roads, and non-paved roads, and objectively and truly recorded the failures, maintenance, fuel costs, etc. of the new car from 0 to 100,000 kilometers. After the entire 100,000 kilometers of running, the column will also disassemble all the vehicles, compare the competitors of the same level, trace the root cause of the problems and abnormalities in the vehicles in the 100,000-kilometer test process, and help users more fully understand the intended car.
Through ultra-long cycle records, full standard, multi-working condition assessment, multi-road conditions, line coverage, full use process restoration, panoramic display of the "lifetime" of 19 models of cars, "Easy Car Horizontal Evaluation True 100,000 kilometers long test" not only created the most investment in the whole network in the same period, but also described by the media as "creating the ceiling of domestic automobile evaluation programs", which has accidentally burned all over the network after the launch, as of now it has been online for 6 periods, the relevant video playback volume is as high as 32.31 million, and the interaction volume is 1.05 million. Station B also specially made a special page to compare the similar programs of Easy Car and Understand Car Emperor in the same period who are more popular.
Looking back at the auto market in 2021, warming + change has become the main theme of the industry, and the automotive information industry has also entered the stage of stock competition in the steady development, of which young users will become the focus of competition on major platforms. As the report notes, "Penetration of people aged 26 to 35 in the automotive information industry continues to increase." In order to continue to maintain the growth of the industry, it is foreseeable that in the future, players in the automotive information industry will launch a protracted operational tug-of-war for users of this age group." In this regard, Aurora data shows that the proportion of 26-35 years old people in the new users of EasyCar is as high as 49.3%, which lays a good foundation for EasyCar to win the second half of the mobile Internet competition of E-car.