When it comes to companies that "play a good hand of cards", I don't know who everyone will think of? I believe that many friends will think of Didi. As a well-known online ride-hailing platform in the mainland, Didi once occupied an absolute market leading position, accounting for more than 90% of the market share, which can be said to be "one big". After swallowing up competitors such as Uber China and Kuaidi in the early stages of development, Didi's development speed can be said to be increasing day by day.
With the influx of a large amount of capital later, Didi's position has become more and more stable. If this trend continues, Didi is afraid that it will always dominate the mainland's online ride-hailing market. But no one ever thought that such a great situation would eventually be destroyed in Didi's own hands.
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Let's pull back the time back to the end of June last year, when Didi, which was getting bigger and bigger, finally decided to officially go public. But the strange thing is that Didi chose to quietly go public in the United States, which was very low-key, and even not many people knew the news at that time. There is no doubt that the capital market is still quite optimistic about Didi. After Didi went public, its market value once rose to more than $80 billion.
But at this time, a key problem surfaced: Didi, as the mainland's first online ride-hailing platform, held the personal information and travel information of hundreds of millions of users. In this case, Didi went public in the United States without any review and without filing, and the risk of information leakage is very large. Based on this consideration, the relevant departments on the mainland subsequently launched a special investigation into Didi.
More than half a year has passed, but the investigation of Didi has not yet ushered in a formal result. However, Didi's illegal collection and use of user information is basically solid.
From the troubles encountered by Didi, we can see some clues. After Didi fell into the investigation, its 25 apps were completely removed from the shelves, and the source of new users was completely cut off. Even after Didi announced that it would delist from the New York Stock Exchange and return to the mainland Hong Kong to re-list, these app removals have not been restored. As of Feb. 17, Didi's latest market capitalization was $21.109 billion, down more than $60 billion from its peak.
And today's data shows that in January this year, Didi's average daily order volume fell to 20 million, down a full 20% compared with the peak period. If the situation cannot be reversed in time, Didi's market dominance may soon be stolen by competitors such as T3 Travel, AutoNavi Taxi, and Cao Cao Travel.
Many friends may feel that Didi fell into this situation today, and Cheng Wei and Liu Qing, as the founders of Didi, must have suffered heavy losses.
Although these two played a key role in Didi's founding and financing process, Cheng Wei and Liu Qing themselves did not invest too much money. The funds in Didi's "burning money war" are mainly financed. And with the influx of a large amount of capital after Didi's growth, the shareholding ratio of Cheng Wei and Liu Qing is constantly diluted. In this case, although the two have a certain loss, they are certainly not the biggest losers.
If you talk about the biggest loser behind the Didi incident, then it is certainly Japan's SoftBank Group. It is reported that in the financing war of Didi's scale of 20 billion US dollars, SoftBank invested as much as 10 billion US dollars and won the position of The largest shareholder of Didi in one fell swoop.
But SoftBank also did not expect that Didi would encounter such a big trouble later. With the plunge in Didi's market value and orders, SoftBank has also been "collateralized". In the third quarter of last year, SoftBank's net profit plunged 99.9%, and the return on investment also plummeted 92%.
In addition, the loss of Uber, the online ride-hailing giant in the United States, is not small. At that time, Uber was originally Didi's biggest competitor, and later ceded its stake in the Chinese market to Didi, which can also be regarded as a merger. Since then, Uber has become Didi's second-largest shareholder. According to relevant data, After Didi's listing, Uber's shareholding ratio is about 12.8%, second only to SoftBank.
To sum up, after Didi's setback, the real big losers must be SoftBank and Uber.
I don't know what everyone thinks about this? Feel free to leave a comment below to discuss.