Wen | Zhang Shule (Columnist of People's Daily And People's Post and Telegraph, Observer of Internet and Game Industry)
In July 2021, Didi was suspended from new user registration and removed from the app market for more than 8 months.
During this period, the aggregation taxi platform represented by AutoNavi rose rapidly, and the number of online ride-hailing platforms that obtained business licenses continued to increase.
According to the statistics of the national online ride-hailing regulatory information exchange platform, as of February 28, 2022, a total of 263 online ride-hailing platform companies across the country have obtained business licenses, an increase of 41 over the same period in 2021, and an increase of 22 over July 2021.
At present, there are three types of online ride-hailing platforms on the market, one is the travel platform developed or invested by large car companies; the second is the travel platform established by local transportation enterprises, and the third is the travel platform established by other social capital.
Didi's market is being cut.
The era when playing Didi was equivalent to playing a ride-hailing car has passed.
Is the online ride-hailing really because of the low threshold and no moat, and let Didi be quickly broken?
In this regard, Wu Zhihe, a reporter of the Securities Times, had an exchange with Shule, and the poor Dao thought:
Ride-hailing is not without a moat.
It's just that if the long tail of social vehicles is only aggregated into a ride-hailing car, it is only a price war and a scale war.
However, at present, some mainstream car companies have begun to participate in the online car industry, opening vehicle customization for online car-hailing, and "building" intelligence, networking and driver-passenger safety experience into customized vehicles, and the technical moat formed is gradually widening.
For example, in the current consumer pain points such as security, you can directly build in the car body, remotely lock and jointly prevent joint control, which is far more secure than relying on only a mobile phone or camera. In the future, this customized model can also bring help to the driverless and vertical market segments.
In this regard, the capital market also gave its own "views".
IT Orange data shows that since July 2021, a number of online ride-hailing platforms such as Cao Cao Travel, T3 Travel, Ruqi Travel, and Dazhong Travel have obtained a new round of financing.
Among them, the financing amount of Caocao Travel and T3 Travel alone exceeded 10 billion yuan.
Among them, it is worth noting that behind Cao Cao's travel is Geely's operation, while behind T3 travel is a number of OEMs involved in starting and escorting the whole process, and the characteristics of the car company + online car model are very obvious.
On the contrary, even if Didi does not "suspend new user registration", it will be difficult to transform due to the existing model, and it will sigh at the moat of friends.
At the same time, once such a moat is formed, it can also gradually form a cutting and deep attack in the high-end and low-end markets in the service.
What about Didi?
If it continues to be unable to add new users, Didi may not only lose its leading position, but also gradually dissipate into the online ride-hailing market.
At present, Didi's biggest pressure is not on the issue of "new users".
The problem with Didi is that it is still an aggregation platform, with scale as a moat, and has not really opened the iterative upgrade of intelligent technology, especially smart cars, and the pressure from the "customized" and "intelligent" online ride-hailing platform is the key to its real loss of leading position in the future.