Increase in unit volume = decrease in revenue
Recently, the Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Administration Bureau released the operation management monitoring information of the ride-hailing market, showing that in March 2023, the average daily order volume of the city's ride-hailing bicycles was 14.74, the average daily operating mileage of bicycles was 119.51 kilometers, and the average daily revenue of bicycles was 354.77 yuan. The corresponding data of Guangzhou E-hailing in 2022, previously released by the bureau, is that the average daily order volume of bicycles is 12.61, and the average daily revenue of e-hailing vehicles with an average daily order of more than 10 (inclusive) does not exceed 400 yuan. The average daily order volume of bicycles is rising, while the average daily revenue is declining, which means that the industry is becoming involuted. Spring River Plumbing Duck Prophet, the changes in the industry, the end of the industry of ride-hailing drivers feel the most obvious.
"Now there are more orders, but there are also more drivers, and there are fewer hands for everyone." Master Deng, who runs online ride-hailing in Guangzhou, said in an interview with a reporter from the Yangcheng Evening News that he began to run online ride-hailing in 2019, and originally wanted to make a slight transition, but he didn't expect to encounter the epidemic, so he ran for 4 years. Master Qi, who has been sports cars for a longer time, said that today's ride-hailing market is not as easy as in 2016 and 2017. "Since the beginning of this year, many people have poured into Guangzhou, and we have indeed received a lot of orders, earning about 20,000 yuan in the month of the New Year." Master Qi said that after the "May Day" wave of consumption passed, the new drivers further influx, residents' willingness to travel, and the number of units decreased significantly. "I am now outside for nearly 15 hours a day, and I can only run less than 500 yuan of running water."
Many markets are saturated
According to the news of Changsha Transportation WeChat public account, since May 16, Changsha has suspended the acceptance of new business of online ride-hailing transportation permits, and those that have been accepted before will be handled according to the normal process. Prior to this, Dongguan, Sanya, Wenzhou, Jinan, Suining and other places have successively issued a saturation warning for online ride-hailing, reminding them that the average daily order volume of local ride-hailing bicycles is less than 10. However, while the average daily order intake of ride-hailing vehicles is gradually decreasing, the number of new commercial vehicles and the number of drivers who have obtained driver's licenses for ride-hailing continues to rise.
According to data from the Ministry of Communications, as of March 31, a total of 307 ride-hailing platform companies across the country had obtained operating licenses for ride-hailing platforms, an increase of 4 from the previous month. A total of 5.229 million ride-hailing driver licenses and 2.250 million vehicle transportation licenses were issued in various places, an increase of 1.0% and 2.7% respectively month-on-month. Under the premise that the capacity is saturated, as more and more drivers join it, it will inevitably lead to increased competition, and it is difficult to ensure that each practitioner can get enough orders.
The industry is becoming increasingly competitive
In terms of the large market environment, ride-hailing drivers may be the fastest growing jobs in the past few years, and even millions of new entrants can be added every year. According to the number of people who have obtained the qualification certificate of online ride-hailing, in 2020, this number was 2.891 million, corresponding to 365 million online ride-hailing users, and by the end of 2022, the number of practitioners climbed to 5.09 million, but the number of users only rose to 437 million.
According to the data released by Didi Chuxing, the number of this group of employees is even larger, with 13 million annual active drivers on the Didi platform in March 2021 and 19 million in March this year. In the short term, the impact of the epidemic in the past three years has led to an increase in the number of new flexible jobs, coupled with the spring of each year, which is the "peak season" for job hunting and job hopping, and the influx of a large number of people has made the position of ride-hailing driver extremely saturated. From January to April this year, a total of 316,000 new ride-hailing driver's licenses were issued nationwide, including 177,000 in April alone.
The "second half" of ride-hailing
It is foreseeable that in the future, with the further saturation of the ride-hailing market, the income of ride-hailing drivers will also be affected. According to the online ride-hailing regulatory information interactive system, a total of 706 million orders were received nationwide in April, down 1.4% month-on-month, while the number of drivers who obtained the driver's qualification certificate for ride-hailing increased by 177,000. The increase in the number of drivers and the decrease in the number of orders have meant that drivers can only maintain their current income levels with longer working hours.
As a result, some drivers with unsatisfactory income will naturally choose to withdraw from the ride-hailing industry, so that the overall supply and demand relationship in the market tends to be balanced. But market regulation is a long and complex process, and other problems may breed during this period, such as low-price competition, large subsidies and so on. Therefore, relying only on market regulation to alleviate the current problem of online car saturation is obviously not enough, and relevant functional departments can intervene in time to make the development of the industry smoother.
So, how many ride-hailing cars does a city need? This affects not only the decision-making of the management department, but also the development of the ride-hailing industry. In this regard, existing cities have established monitoring models. For example, at the end of 2022, Shenzhen began to explore the establishment of a dynamic adjustment mechanism for the scale of ride-hailing capacity, once the average daily order volume of ride-hailing vehicles changes by less than -10%, the average daily order volume of bicycles is less than 11, the mileage utilization rate of cruise vehicles is less than 60%, and 2 of the three conditions are met, an early warning will be triggered for government decision-making reference.
Gradually entering the era of "autonomous driving"
In the past three years, autonomous ride-hailing has entered trial operation from road testing. Technically, great progress has been made in terms of accumulated mileage and driving in complex and harsh environments. In the past, automatic ride-hailing was mainly carried during the day, but now it can be driven at night and when it rains. Great progress has also been made in technical indicators such as average manual handover mileage. The general direction of driverless technology is no problem, it is the general trend. Various functions of driverless driving are already beginning to be reflected in new cars, such as automatic parking, lane departure warning, etc. But to achieve the essential leap, that is, when the driver can be removed, there is no need for a safety officer, it will take time.
After the technology is fully mature, self-driving ride-hailing will replace manual ride-hailing from the perspective of large-scale application, but this process does not happen overnight. As for those atypical scenarios, such as people with disabilities who need help, they can be solved by artificial intelligence and intelligence. Just like when we call customer service now, most of them are already machines, and if the problem cannot be solved, it will be transferred to manual customer service. This is also the relationship between manual ride-hailing and automatic ride-hailing in the future.
The ride-hailing industry has gradually recovered after the epidemic, but it is also facing challenges such as market saturation and policy regulation. To survive and thrive in this environment, you need to constantly innovate. Whether it is service innovation, model innovation or technological innovation, it is to better meet the needs of users, improve user experience, and enhance user loyalty. Only in this way can we stand out from the competition and win the recognition and support of the market.