Text/Paula
Now in addition to the car family, more carless people like me, our travel in addition to the bus is a taxi, it can be said that Didi opened a new era of taxi, making our life more convenient.
With the opening of the era of automobile intelligence, Internet companies have begun to build cars across borders seems to have become a popular trend, from Huawei to Xiaomi, from Meituan to 360, in the era of electric vehicles, the threshold for car manufacturing has been greatly reduced. Nowadays, Didi has also begun to build its own car-making empire, trying to fully "cover" our travel life.
Building a car will become a new idea for Didi to reverse losses
The negative news has directly led to the decline in Didi's main business income, the net loss is increasing, and the views of all parties on Didi have begun to be less optimistic. When searching for the keyword didi's financial report, the following appears.
According to official data, in the third quarter of 2021 alone, Didi's net loss reached 30.6 billion yuan. From the former overlord of online car-hailing to being delisted after only 150 days of listing in the United States, Didi's situation is inseparable from its own death.
2021 is undoubtedly a year of heavy blows for Didi, because Didi blamed itself, and finally was forcibly removed from the "Didi Chuxing" APP by the Cyberspace Administration of China for suspected illegal collection and use of personal information.
Due to the "Didi Chuxing" APP, a large number of online ride-hailing drivers on the platform have been lost, and Didi's losses have intensified. Even if the APP has been rectified many times later, it is of little use for saving the crumbling reputation, and the trust of consumers in Didi has since fallen to the bottom, and the driver group has reduced the number of orders received by the platform, which eventually brings a vicious circle of losses.
After the market value evaporated by 100 billion, for Didi, which has a relatively single business, car manufacturing is a forced and inevitable choice for Didi, which can not only expand new business to increase revenue, but also have a positive impact on the future market value rise.
Three advantages of car building
Didi car still has certain advantages over other cross-border new forces such as Baidu and Evergrande. The advantages are mainly reflected in the following aspects:
1. Familiar with the automotive industry, lower barriers to entry.
Through the industries involved in Didi, it is not difficult to find that Didi covers many businesses related to the automotive industry, including travel and bicycle sharing that Volkswagen is most familiar with.
More than two months ago, the cooperation between Didi's autonomous driving company and GAC Eian New Energy Vehicle was officially announced, which shows that Didi's layout in the field of automatic driving has also begun to make progress, and it can help the development of its own car manufacturing business in the future. In addition, Didi has already laid out in the automotive aftermarket such as charging piles and financial sectors.
2. Advantages of industrial chain.
In 2018, Didi has jointly initiated the establishment of the "Torrent Alliance" with 31 automotive industry chain enterprises from automobile manufacturing, spare parts manufacturing, new energy, digital maps, internet of vehicles and other fields, and Didi has opened up the upstream and downstream industrial chains of car manufacturing.
3. The data advantage is unbeatable.
The most important of the three advantages is the data of drivers and passengers, although Didi is now losing more drivers and passengers, but the millions of user resource data accumulated over the years can become the best learning resources for Didi cars, such as driver driving habits, passengers' demand for ride space, etc.
It is not difficult to find that in the era of automobile intelligence, the threshold for car manufacturing has become lower, and it is more tested who can more accurately grasp the needs of users. In summary, Didi's advantages in this regard cannot be replicated by other new forces. In fact, every car owner is a driver, are passengers, Didi has mastered the user's first-hand information, if you can transform the habits and needs of drivers and passengers into car design, Didi can grasp the development of the opportunity.
There are two major disadvantages of car building
Didi car manufacturing certainly has its own advantages, but its car manufacturing prospects are not optimistic.
1. Insufficient talent
From the leadership level to ordinary employees, the talent of Didi Car is seriously insufficient. According to media reports, the person in charge of Didi Car is Yang Jun, vice president of Didi and general manager of Xiao orange car service, but looking at the previous resume, it was found that Yang Jun basically has no relevant background in the automotive industry, and if the leader without relevant experience is allowed to preside over the overall situation, this is a very dangerous thing. According to previous media reports, Didi's car business is codenamed "Da Vinci", and the current team size is about 1700 people. However, according to the signboard information, the manpower gap of Didi car manufacturing is still very large, and it is still vigorously recruiting.
2. Shortage of funds
As we mentioned above, Didi's net loss is deteriorating, specifically, Didi's net loss in the second quarter of 2021 last year reached 24.271 billion yuan, and the net loss in the third quarter reached 30.375 billion yuan. According to industry estimates, according to the current loss situation, Didi only has 48.649 billion yuan of cash left on the account, which will be spent in two years at most. As we all know, building a car is a matter of burning money, even if Didi still has enough cash reserves, but whether it can invest enough money in the car, we do not know.
Write at the end:
Car manufacturing is an opportunity and a challenge for Didi, under the continuous loss and evaporation of market value, Didi can find another way out of a profit model. Analyzing the current situation of Didi, Didi's advantages are obvious, but compared with other new forces, Didi's funding gap may be the biggest problem. Didi can grasp this outlet, we may be able to know in June, according to media reports, Didi or will release a car-making plan in June, when we can focus on the capital situation of the core team of car-making.