Recently, the State Information Center officially released the "China Sharing Economy Development Report (2022)", the report research shows that in 2021, the mainland sharing economy market transaction scale of about 3688.1 billion yuan, an increase of about 9.2% year-on-year; the scale of direct financing is about 213.7 billion yuan, an increase of about 80.3% year-on-year. At the same time, the report also studies the market competition pattern in the field of sharing economy market segmentation, and believes that in 2021, the mainland sharing economy will be more competitive in major areas such as transportation, travel, and life services.
The sharing economy model has gradually matured, and enterprises have actively promoted listing financing
The report begins by pointing out that the sharing economy referred to in the report is the use of Internet platforms to optimize the allocation of decentralized resources, and to improve the efficiency of resource utilization and facilitate the lives of the masses by promoting the innovation of asset ownership, organizational forms, employment models and consumption methods.
The report divides the mainland sharing economy market into seven areas: transportation, shared accommodation, knowledge and skills, life services, shared medical care, shared office and production capacity. The study shows that in 2021, the transaction scale of the sharing economy market in the three fields of life services, production capacity and knowledge and skills ranked among the top three, with 1,711.8 billion yuan, 1,236.8 billion yuan and 454 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 46.41%, 33.53% and 12.31% respectively.
From the perspective of year-on-year growth rate in 2021, shared office, production capacity and knowledge and skills have the fastest growth rate. Among them, the growth rate of shared office is the highest, reaching 26.2%, and the demand for flexible office brought about by the epidemic has spawned this growth rate. The transaction volume of shared accommodation affected by the epidemic is still down year-on-year compared with 2020.
According to the report, in 2021, sharing economy enterprises will actively promote listing financing, and according to preliminary calculations, the direct financing scale in the sharing economy field will be about 213.7 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 80.3% year-on-year. Among them, the financing amount of transportation, shared accommodation, life services and shared medical care has a higher growth rate year-on-year, all of which exceed 100%, and the amount of knowledge skills and shared office financing has declined year-on-year, of which the financing amount of shared office has declined from 6.8 billion yuan in 2020 to only 100 million yuan in 2021, a decline of 98.5%.
The report analyzes that with the expansion of the scale of shared platform enterprises and the maturity of business models, raising funds through listing and open markets has become an increasingly important financing channel for platforms. In terms of different fields, platform enterprises in multiple fields such as shared travel, knowledge sharing, logistics, and charging will actively promote listing financing in 2021.
The report believes that listing is first of all the need for the development of platform enterprises themselves. In order to further absorb social funds and support the sustainable development of the platform business, accelerating the listing has become a strategic choice for many shared platforms. Secondly, listing is also the need for venture capital to exit. As Internet platforms continue to mature, the willingness of venture capital to withdraw has also increased.
The market in the fields of online car-hailing, knowledge sharing, and community group buying has changed greatly
Affected by regulatory policies, enterprise listings, capital market situations and other factors, in 2021, the competition between sharing economy platform enterprises will become more intense, new changes will occur in the market pattern in some areas, some industries will enter a new integration period, and a new round of "reshuffle tide" will appear in some fields.
For example, in the field of shared travel, with the removal of many Related Apps from Didi in early July, various online ride-hailing platforms have launched new competitive strategies to seize market share. A large number of second-tier online ride-hailing platforms have strengthened their promotion in various ways, invested a lot of financial subsidies at both ends of drivers and passengers, and accelerated their entry into other cities, in order to seize the empty window period of the online ride-hailing industry and seek better development. Capital is also returning to this area after a few years of silence. A number of online ride-hailing platforms will obtain a new round of large financing in 2021, such as Caocao Chuxing received a B round of financing of 3.8 billion yuan in September, and T3 Travel completed a round of financing of 7.7 billion yuan in October.
In the field of knowledge sharing, the competition of audio content platforms is becoming increasingly fierce, and a number of large Internet companies such as Tencent, Byte, and NetEase have entered the game, competing with industry-leading Himalayas, lychees of the industry's second echelon, dragonfly FM, etc. to compete for content and traffic resources.
In the field of life services, on the one hand, some enterprises that once occupied the market advantage withdrew from the market or contracted their business, just as the city life went bankrupt and the food enjoyment would be suspended, and the community group buying enterprises such as Xingsheng Preferred, Shihui Group, Orange Heart Preferred, Meicai.com, and Jingxi Pinpin had different degrees of contraction and adjustment. Late entrants continue to accelerate the pace of market expansion. Overall, with the gradual implementation of regulatory measures, the market will become more rational, refined operation cost reduction and efficiency increase have become the focus of gravity, and some platform companies focusing on meeting the different needs of small users are facing new market opportunities.
At the same time, from the perspective of the entire sharing economy market pattern, the trend of the sharing economy such as the platform helping small and medium-sized enterprises to digital transformation, technology sharing, and sharing of means of production from the consumer end to the production end is becoming more and more obvious, and the role of the sharing economy in "ensuring the main body of the market" is becoming increasingly prominent. The report lists the platform to help merchants digitize, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other new technologies to empower small and medium-sized enterprises, through the sharing of inventory, shared means of production, shared employment, shared office, shared factories and other new formats and new models.
The report points out that overall, the development of the mainland sharing economy in 2021 has shown some new characteristics. First, affected by regulatory policies, enterprise listings, capital market situations and other factors, the market pattern of the sharing economy in major areas has been reshaped, competition has become more intense, and the expansion and innovation of diversified business models have become more important. Second, a series of policies and measures to strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of workers in new employment forms have been introduced, and the rights and interests of new employment groups in the sharing economy have been continuously improved. Third, the pace of construction of the sharing economy market system has accelerated, supervision and law enforcement have been intensified, and the market order has been further standardized.
For the problems facing the development of the mainland's sharing economy, the report pointed out that first, the continuous pressure on the macroeconomic downturn, platform governance and supervision strengthening and other factors affect the expectations of sharing economy enterprises; second, the compliance level of sharing economy platforms in terms of participants, price behavior, labor management, data management, etc. needs to be improved; third, platform enterprises have multiple potential risks such as excessive data collection or even illegal collection, data abuse, and data leakage, and data security governance is facing new challenges Fourth, sharing economy platform enterprises face greater uncertainty and higher compliance costs in the process of expanding the international market, and enterprises "going out" face new challenges.
The report believes that the new formats and models of the sharing economy in the "14th Five-Year Plan" mainland usher in new development opportunities, and the penetration scenarios of the sharing economy in the fields of life services and production and manufacturing will be more abundant. With the comprehensive development of the sharing economy, the labor security system system of the new employment form of the platform will be accelerated and improved, and the main responsibility of the platform enterprise will be further clarified. From the perspective of policy orientation, the development of the sharing economy will become an important starting point for improving the effectiveness of the digital transformation of the real economy.
Producer: Nandu Kechuang Studio
Written by: Nandu reporter Xu Jincong