With the Spring Festival approaching in 2023 and the liberalization of the epidemic, following Didi's delisting, the long-dormant ride-hailing shared travel has made waves again. According to reports, at the end of December, the relevant national transportation departments conducted reminder interviews with 15 major new transportation platform companies, including Didi Chuxing, T3 Travel, Cao Cao Travel, Wanshun Ride-hailing, Meituan Taxi, Shouqi Ride-hailing, Ruqi Travel, Xiandao Travel, Sunshine Travel, AutoNavi Taxi, Dida Travel, Manbang Group, Lalala, Didi Freight, and Kuaigou Taxi.
It is worth noting that Cao Cao, a subsidiary of Geely Holding, just came with the news of the IPO landing in the secondary capital market a few months ago. Although Cao Cao was officially secretive about this news, the interview with the media reporter only responded with "no comment", which can be described as an understatement. However, the outside world is highly concerned about whether Cao Cao can take over the baton of Didi and become the first stock of online ride-hailing. The reason for the industry's high concern is obviously because the pattern of the ride-hailing market is undecided, and Cao Cao has several possibilities.
01
It is difficult to have oligarchs in the oligarchic market, and it may be difficult for Cao Cao to break the curse
As we all know, shared travel was originally an entrepreneurial track with relatively high entry barriers and ultra-high requirements for the capital, resources, and operational capabilities of the incoming enterprises. Therefore, the first to enter the game are only Didi and fast, but in the end, they can't get rid of the fate of merging into one.
In recent years, with the formation of the head camp of online ride-hailing, there are countless latecomers in the industry. According to data from research agencies, Didi's current market share has fallen from 90% at its peak to 70%. However, except for Didi, which occupies an absolute advantage in market share but is very disappointed in the capital market, it seems that it is difficult to find a leading ride-hailing company.
If these players are classified, in addition to Didi being from the Internet platform and originally having nothing to do with the automotive industry, whether it is Cao Cao Travel, endorsed by Geely, or Xiandao Travel, backed by SAIC, Ruqi Travel, which is "supported" by GAC, and Shouqi Ride-hailing with its back to Shouqi and T3 Travel, which is backed by FAW, Dongfeng and Changan, etc., basically have strong automotive genes. Therefore, in terms of capital and resources, there is also the confidence to compete with Internet platforms such as Didi.
However, Cao Cao's bargaining chip in entering the ride-hailing track is that relying on the economic practicality of new energy vehicles and the support of models provided by parent company Geely, it only needs to focus on the operation of the passenger end, and can create a user scale of the same magnitude as other B2C ride-hailing platforms, and the cost is significantly lower than that of such platforms.
However, the problems caused by this are also obvious. Compared with Didi's asset-light model of pure platform operation, Cao Cao's assets are becoming heavier, and the challenges and risks brought by this are self-evident.
Under such a model, the first test Cao Cao faced was the "black swan" event of the epidemic outbreak in 2020. At that time, Cao Cao was in an embarrassing situation where the debt ratio remained high, and the total debt far exceeded the total assets.
The operational risk of insolvency is self-evident. Although the assets and liabilities of Cao Cao in 2021-2022 have improved slightly, it is still not optimistic. The weight of its mode can be seen by comparing Didi.
According to Didi Chuxing's financial report data, as of the end of 2020, Didi Chuxing's total assets were about 147.265 billion yuan, total liabilities were about 30.116 billion yuan, net assets were about 117.149 billion yuan, and the asset-liability ratio was 20.45%.
This also means that Didi Chuxing's asset-liability ratio is much lower than that of Cao Cao, and the asset quality is significantly better than that of Cao Cao.
It is understood that in April 2022, the number of Cao Cao travel users has exceeded 120 million, and the monthly active users are tens of millions. Although this magnitude is still far from Didi, it has maintained a rapid development momentum since 2021. You know, its cumulative users were only 60 million in July 2021.
However, when the entire ride-hailing market tends to be saturated and the stock market no longer exists, the user growth of Cao Cao Chuxing is only the result of the trade-offs of major players in the industry. About 20% of the market share that Didi has given away is also being eaten away by major players. Cao Cao's expansion strategy, mainly relying on subsidies for growth, is no different from the early Didi, and whether it is sustainable remains to be verified by the market.
Therefore, some insiders have analyzed that car companies entering the online car hailing track, making profits and making money may not be their only purpose, and seizing the traffic entrance, opening up the industrial chain, and establishing an industrial ecology may be its ultimate goal.
However, in the ride-hailing market, which should be very concentrated, there are now many players, and there seems to be no sign of too many leading companies emerging from the top. And whether Cao Cao, who is equal to the major players, can take the baton of Didi and enter the real head camp, or even wrestle with Didi to compete with other players, is still unknown.
02
Competition has intensified, and the "second oldest in the industry" is undecided
Although Cao Cao has completed three rounds of financing so far, there are many investment institutions that have injected capital. However, from the perspective of financing amount and valuation, there is still a gap between it and T3 Travel. It is understood that Cao Cao Chuxing's latest financing is 3.8 billion yuan, estimated at 17 billion yuan. T3 Mobility's investment includes the three state-owned automobile groups FAW, Dongfeng and Changan, as well as Internet giants such as Alibaba, Tencent, Suning and Tongcheng, with the latest financing amount of 7.7 billion yuan and a valuation of 21 billion yuan.
Comparing the number of registered users of the two, T3's 100 million registrations are almost the same as Cao Cao's. However, judging from the number of cities settled, Cao Cao is still far from T3 travel. According to official data, Cao Cao currently only covers 62 cities, while T3 travel has exceeded 100. It can be seen that although in terms of impacting the IPO, Cao Cao seems to be hot at present, seizing the opportunity. However, the second battle in the industry is imminent, and T3, endorsed by many strong car companies, is becoming Cao Cao's biggest competitor.
In addition to the "second old" dispute, the external competition faced by Cao Cao is also negligible. You know, although the ride-hailing market relies heavily on offline, it also needs to have online entrance thinking in order to get more new users while retaining old users.
Although Didi has experienced "life and death" in recent years and suspended new user registration for a long time, its market share is still as high as 70%, far ahead and leading the industry. In the final analysis, it is because in addition to having an important entrance on national apps such as WeChat and Alipay, Didi also brings users the ultimate consumer experience through the back-end operation of efficient order distribution.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the above-mentioned car company ride-hailing platforms, there are also new players such as AutoNavi and Meituan, as well as Huawei and Tencent who have just entered the game, all of which are through their own huge traffic windows, and include the aggregation mode of private car B2C and shared C2C platforms. Taking AutoNavi Map as an example, from the user data, AutoNavi daily activity is stable at more than 100 million, even if the conversion rate of AutoNavi taxi is low, it is enough to become a potential rival and threat to Cao Cao.
Although the major player models are different and the path to customer acquisition is different, they are all the same in the end, and they all need to eat away at the 30% market share that has not yet been occupied by Didi. In the context of limited remaining share, the fierce competition in the industry can also be imagined.
In addition to the battle between capital and model, the traffic war of major ride-hailing vehicles has begun. Recently, a news that "online ride-hailing on Douyin may become a reality" has made waves in the ride-hailing industry again, and a "dark war" about traffic is even more surging.
It is understood that at the end of December 2022, Douyin has opened the qualification of platform service providers for transportation services, and T3 Travel has launched a mini program on the Douyin APP. A number of local travel service platforms have also entered Douyin in the form of mini programs.
Although according to people familiar with the matter, the Douyin open platform only provides relevant tools to divert traffic for major ride-hailing platforms, and it has no plans to make a taxi platform. However, as one of the most rigid needs in clothing, food, housing and transportation, travel must be a must-fight place for the living platform Douyin to try to increase its weight.
No matter what Douyin's real intention is to enter the game, it will mean that in the hot short video platform traffic battlefield, another "war" of online ride-hailing platforms is about to begin. And Cao Cao will also face a new round of industry reshuffle and head players to compete.
03
Eat a ticket again, online car hailing is difficult to escape "Murphy's Law"
The magic of Murphy's Law tells us that if things have a chance of going bad, no matter how small that possibility is, it will always happen. In the early years, due to poor supervision and loopholes in platform rules, ride-hailing platforms caused passengers to ride ride-hailing cars, and various personal and property safety problems arose.
At a time when the industry is growing wildly, the risks of platform operations are still like no one's land, and almost no one pays attention. However, as the industry becomes more and more mature, such social events have also been repeated, and various drawbacks and risks brought to people's safety by online ride-hailing have also been exposed. Such incidents are also becoming the most powerful driving force for the development of the ride-hailing industry and ride-hailing platforms in a more standardized and perfect direction.
However, even so, the phenomenon of illegal fines of ride-hailing platforms still occurs from time to time, and it is even the "sword of Damolis" for the future development of the platform.
For example, recently, Cao Cao traveled to Wenzhou to take one passenger from the north gate of the Central Lake Mansion to Building E of the South Business and Trade City of the station, passing by the intersection of Wenrui Avenue and Yue Le Street, and encountered an inspection by law enforcement personnel from the agency. Subsequently, law enforcement officers discovered that the online car had not obtained the "Online Booking Taxi Transport Permit" and immediately launched administrative punishments. The driver has been refunded and the fare incurred has been refunded to the passenger.
After the "upgrade" of the Personal Information Protection Law, personal information protection has also reached a higher level, and in addition to the fact that the shared travel platform does not comply with relevant laws and regulations, which brings safety threats to passengers, its infringement of user privacy has been widely criticized.
Not long ago, the Cyberspace Administration of Zhejiang Province investigated and dealt with 173 illegal apps in accordance with laws and regulations such as the Personal Information Protection Law and the Methods for Identifying the Illegal Collection and Use of Personal Information by Apps, and "Cao Cao joined the driver" was also prominently listed.
It is worth mentioning that according to the information disclosed on the Credit China website, since March 2021, the cumulative number of administrative punishments for Cao Cao has reached hundreds. It can be seen that the ride-hailing platform represented by Cao Cao's behavior is almost on the verge of illegal operation.
As mentioned earlier, Murphy's Law, these violations, while seemingly insignificant, are a sign that things are going bad. If you turn a blind eye and turn a deaf ear, I am afraid that one day, it will bring irreparable losses to the operation of the enterprise, and even fatal disasters. In the early years, some head platforms were pushed to the cusp of public opinion, and even forced to be removed from the shelves and rectified, which is a lesson from the past.
As the current "listing hot" that hit the IPO, although the number of users of Cao Cao Chuxing is far less than Didi, after all, it is also in the scale of 100 million, plus the endorsement of Geely Automobile, and there are many capital blessings, so it is enough to become the number one player to seize 30% of the market share outside Didi.
However, when the competition in the ride-hailing market is becoming more and more fierce and the track is getting narrower, platforms such as T3, which is also endorsed by car companies and powered by Internet giant capital, is also competing with it for the second position in the industry.
Coupled with the frequent fines of Cao Cao and the fact that business risks are still there, it is enough to show that the "cracks" in its platform operation still exist. The future development of Cao Cao will also be full of variables. And even if it is successfully listed and takes over the first share of online car-hailing, I am afraid it will be difficult to settle once and for all.