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In addition to the traffic drying up, Didi is also facing problems such as network security reviews and 25 apps that have been removed from shelves for half a year. And this also makes Didi's layoffs have a fatalistic meaning.
Author 丨 Tianyu
Edit 丨 nuts
Cover source 丨 Figureworm Creative
Although it has long been spring, Didi has not survived the cold winter of the Internet industry.
On February 14, 2022, LatePost announced that since January 2022, Didi has taken the lead in laying off employees in the innovation division R-Lab. Subsequently, almost all of Didi's business began to lay off employees, "the proportion of layoffs in various departments is different, and the overall layoff ratio is about 20%."
Although in the early 2022 Internet winter tide, Kuaishou, iQiyi, ByteDance and other Internet companies have also launched layoff plans, but Didi and the above companies have different reasons for layoffs.
Because in addition to the dry traffic, Didi is also facing problems such as network security reviews and 25 apps that have been removed from the shelves for half a year. And this also makes Didi's layoffs have a fatalistic meaning.
1
The ride-hailing market is back
When it was quietly listed on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, 2021, Didi was proud of the spring breeze.
According to the survey data released by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, in May 2020, Didi's monthly living was 54.39 million. For comparison, the second-ranked Shouqi Automobile has only 2.46 million monthly active users, which is less than a fraction of Didi's.
According to the data released by the online ride-hailing regulatory information interaction platform, in October 2020, the number of online ride-hailing orders nationwide was 630 million, of which Didi ordered 562 million, taking 89% of the market share.
It is precisely for this reason that with Didi landing on the New York Stock Exchange, setting the second largest IPO of Chinese stocks since Alibaba in 2014, the market value has soared all the way to $80 billion, and industry players agree that there will be no new opportunities in the future of the online ride-hailing industry, and the pattern of the entire industry will be "one super and more weak".
But unfortunately, Didi, which is eager to land in the capital market, ignores the issue of information security. On July 4, 2021, the relevant departments pointed out that Didi "seriously violated laws and regulations to collect and use personal information" in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, and removed Didi's app.
This is equivalent to Didi directly sending a "king bomb" to competitors who intend to surrender their weapons, and for a time, the online car industry has resurfaced.
Taking Meituan as an example, as early as 2017, it had entered the online ride-hailing market, but on the one hand, the relevant departments did not allow online ride-hailing platforms to "disrupt social order with low prices", on the other hand, Meituan was planning to land on the capital market and hoped to reduce losses. Therefore, after testing the waters for more than a year, the Meituan taxi has gradually been marginalized.
After Didi removed the shelves, Meituan quickly "repositioned" the online ride-hailing business and re-launched the Meituan taxi app on July 11, 2021. At the same time, Meituan is also trying to dig the corner of Didi driver resources, and official information shows that from July 14 to July 20, 2021, new drivers can enjoy a 7-day commission-free policy after registering for Meituan taxis.
Not only the "rookie" of the US group, but also the online ride-hailing platform that has been living in the shadow of Didi has also begun to stir. This can be seen from the attitude of investors.
According to enterprise investigation data, in September 2021, Cao Cao Chuxing completed a Series B financing of 3.8 billion yuan, which is the first equity financing in the online ride-hailing industry in 2021. Cao Cao Travel's record has not been maintained for too long, and in October 2021, T3 Travel announced the completion of a Series A financing of 7.7 billion yuan, which set a record for the largest single financing amount in the online ride-hailing industry since 2018.
On the one hand, Didi's "flow valve" was stuck, on the other hand, other platforms actively "dug the corner", and Didi's cake was naturally grabbed.
Statistics from the national online ride-hailing regulatory information exchange platform show that in August 2021, the national online ride-hailing orders were 640 million, down 17.2% month-on-month. Among them, the order volume of Didi Chuxing and Hua Xiaopig of the Didi system fell by 21.1% and 2.6% respectively. However, the order volume of the waist ride-hailing platform has increased significantly. For example, the order volume of timely car, T3 travel and sunshine travel increased by 113.0%, 66.8% and 33.8% respectively.
The "Mobile Internet Industry Data Research Report for the Third Quarter of 2021" released by Aurora Big Data also shows that in Q3 2021, as Didi suffered challenges, waist players began to rise strongly, of which Cao Cao Travel's monthly active users reached 11.015 million, an increase of 62.5% year-on-year, becoming the first online ride-hailing platform with more than 10 million monthly active users after Didi.
2
Didi's core business was languishing
A very important reason why Didi was able to land on the capital market in 2021 is that it finally turned a profit.
Official data shows that in Q1 2021, Didi's revenue was 42.2 billion yuan and net profit was 5.5 billion yuan. In contrast, in 2018, 2019 and 2020, Didi's net losses were 14.979 billion yuan, 9.733 billion yuan and 10.608 billion yuan, respectively.
However, with the continuous removal of the App, Didi's financial performance has begun to be unsatisfactory.
According to the financial report, in Q3 2021, China's travel business accounted for 93% of Didi's total revenue. LatePost also revealed that as of January 2022, Didi's average daily single volume is only about 20 million, down 20% compared with the 25 million before the listing disclosed in the prospectus. At present, Didi's share in the online ride-hailing market is only about 70%.
This will inevitably greatly affect Didi's revenue. According to the financial report, in Q2 2021, didi China's travel business revenue was 44.8 billion yuan, and by Q3, this figure was reduced to 39 billion yuan, down 5.11% year-on-year and 12.93% month-on-month.
In addition, under the encirclement and suppression of other platforms, Didi's total transaction volume has also been declining. In Q3 2021, the total transaction volume of Didi's core platform was 68.7 billion yuan, down 6.2% month-on-month. China's travel business transactions totaled RMB58.4 billion, down nearly 9.6% sequentially.
A big impact of this is that Didi has fallen into the quagmire of losses. In Q3 2021, Didi's net loss reached 30.375 billion yuan. In the same period last year, Didi also made a profit of 665 million yuan.
Affected by the third quarter earnings news, Didi's stock price plunged 8.18% at one point, with a total market value of only $23.8 billion, compared with the high point of $80 billion, the market value has evaporated by nearly 60 billion.
3
Survive the cold winter to talk about the second curve
Although as early as 2019, in the case of a loss of 10.8 billion yuan, Didi reorganized its business line and laid off about 2,000 employees, but in the current situation, Didi's layoffs in early 2022 do not seem to be a "strategic adjustment", but more importantly, it should be said that it is "abandoning the pawn to protect the car".
This is not only because almost all of Didi's business has begun to lay off employees, but also because Other business lines of Didi are difficult to bring sufficient positive cash flow to the group.
For example, as early as June 2020, Didi was involved in fresh e-commerce and launched a community e-commerce business called "Orange Heart Preferred". After the epidemic, due to the rapid development of community e-commerce, Didi attaches great importance to this business, and in November 2020, Didi CEO Cheng Wei threatened: "Didi has no upper limit on the investment of Orange Heart Preferred, and strives to win the first place in the market." ”
However, with the continuous entry of professional e-commerce platforms such as Meituan and Pinduoduo, Orange Heart Preferred has not earned too many dividends in the market. The financial report shows that in Q3 of 2021, Didi Orange Heart Preferred business lost 20.8 billion yuan. Today, we can no longer find Orange Heart In the Didi Chuxing APP.
Almost synchronously with Orange Heart Preferred, in April 2020, Didi also entered the freight business, because it is still a travel track, Didi's freight business performed well in the early stage, only five months, the daily order volume exceeded 100,000. However, with the removal of the Didi App, Didi's freight business has also fallen into a stagnant growth dilemma.
According to the financial report, in Q3 2021, Didi's revenue from the "other sectors" including freight business was 2.7 billion yuan, an increase of only 100 million yuan compared with the previous quarter, and the growth rate was only 3.84% month-on-month.
Although the prospectus and the latest financial reports show that overseas business, autonomous driving, and electric vehicles are Didi's future growth points, the problem is that these emerging businesses are not much help for Didi's revenue at present, on the contrary, Didi even needs to continuously transfuse these new businesses.
For example, the prospectus shows that Didi expects to raise 30% of the IPO to upgrade its own technology for shared mobility, electric vehicles and autonomous driving.
The decline in traffic and the loss of new business cannot bring "open source", so the layoff of "throttling" has naturally become the optimal solution for Didi's current "hemostasis".
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