The night Didi collapsed

"I have doubted the field where I am, I have doubted the mobile signal, I have doubted the Apple phone in my hand, but I have not doubted Didi. After the Didi system collapsed, a netizen complained on social media.

At around 10 p.m. on November 27, Didi users and ride-hailing drivers in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and other places suddenly fell into a panic. The Didi Chuxing app on their mobile phones had problems such as maps could not be loaded, abnormal deductions, users could not get taxis, and drivers could not find passengers.

Like the netizens above, many Didi users mistakenly thought that their mobile phones were down and off the Internet at first, but they still couldn't operate the app after charging their phone bills. Later, everyone found out that not only was the Didi App unavailable, but Didi's own bike-sharing brand, Qingju Bicycle, also had the problem of not being able to lock the car and not being able to check out when it reached the destination.

This sudden accident made many migrant workers who got off work late at night, and Didi drivers who were about to work at night, messy for a long time in the winter night.

Some users said that they took 3 cars downstairs in the company in the middle of the night, and they were all prompted by the App to "order canceled", but 3 drivers came. Some people also said that they finally got into the car, but the driver could not click "Received passengers", and after reaching the destination, the driver still did not click successfully. In the end, he had no choice, so he used WeChat to transfer the fare to the driver.

According to media reports, some drivers received orders from 2,000 kilometers away, and some drivers had abnormal flow of water.

For a large Internet company, this is undoubtedly a large-scale technical accident. At 23:19 on the evening of November 27, Didi Chuxing quickly responded, saying that due to technical failures, Didi's App service was abnormal, "After emergency repair by the technical department, it is currently being restored one after another." We apologize again for the inconvenience caused to the majority of users and drivers. ”

At 7:31 a.m. on November 28, Didi issued another apology notice, saying that after overnight repairs by the technical team, Didi's ride-hailing services have been restored, and users can download the Didi App to use the taxi service.

However, there are still some users who report that they are late for work because they can't get a taxi. This morning, topics such as "Didi collapsed" and "full attendance is gone" occupied the hot search on Weibo. In the afternoon, topics such as "some Didi drivers began to withdraw money" and "Didi is expected to lose more than 400 million" sparked heated discussions again.

The full attendance bonus for workers is gone

Last night, a netizen who had hit Didi told "City Boundary" that it was obviously an 11 yuan itinerary, but this morning, the Didi platform directly deducted 110 yuan. Many netizens also encountered a similar situation, "7 kilometers away, 270 yuan was deducted", "15 kilometers of orders, 169 yuan was directly deducted" and so on. According to media reports, some drivers were afraid that there would be problems with the system and that their accounts would be cancelled, so they began to withdraw cash.

Regarding the concerns of users and drivers, Didi Chuxing said on Weibo early in the morning: "Please don't worry about abnormal payment and overdeduction caused by system failure, wait patiently, and will settle and compensate for the accident after the accident." ”

In addition, Didi asks drivers and masters to pay attention to the delay in the issuance of relevant rewards that have been received/purchased due to system reasons, and the platform will calculate normally, and make up the payment one after another, and the word-of-mouth travel score will also be calculated normally, and the display will be resumed one after another. "Individual drivers and masters feedback that they cannot start the trip and billing after receiving passengers, please pick up and drop off passengers normally, and deliver them to their destinations safely, and the platform will calculate and reissue fares according to the itinerary in the future. ”

▲ (On November 28, 2023, in Shanghai, a user took a taxi through the Didi mobile app at around 8:50 a.m., and the Didi app system response was normal)

Although Didi sincerely apologized, many migrant workers were still very distressed that their attendance awards were gone. On social platforms, many users said that because they couldn't call an online car-hailing car in the morning, there was a problem with the code scanning of Qingju bicycle, which directly led to being late for work.

In such a highly competitive ride-hailing industry, Didi has taken a stumble, directly creating opportunities for competitors. Some users just bought a monthly card for Qingju, and when they encountered the problem of scanning the code, they turned around and bought the monthly card of Meituan Xiaohuangche, and many Didi users chose platforms such as AutoNavi Taxi and T3 Travel.

Wang Zheng, a Didi user in Shanghai, told City Boundary that he went to bed early last night and didn't know what was going on. At half past eight this morning, he planned to take a taxi to work normally, only to find that the Didi App showed that the order could not be placed, and it could not be fixed.

In order not to delay time, Wang Zheng opened the AutoNavi App and called Cao Cao within 5 minutes. Later, he learned from the driver that the Didi App had collapsed last night. "But the driver was so happy that there was a lot more business today. Before arriving at the destination, the driver's new order rang again. ”

Wang Zheng mentioned that usually his 2-kilometer journey is 16 yuan for Didi, and 16 yuan for Cao Cao's travel, but today Gaode App gave a coupon, and he spent 13.7 yuan on a 2-kilometer journey. Some netizens also posted pictures saying that Gaode taxi is a bit of a "robbery while the fire is hot", and sent users a coupon of 1.9 yuan to buy a package worth 17 yuan.

For Didi, the damage caused by this accident is not small. Didi's latest three-quarter report data shows that China's travel business revenue in the quarter was 46.6 billion yuan, the total transaction volume was 72.5 billion yuan, and the total number of travel orders was 2.878 billion orders, that is, the average single-day revenue was 506 million yuan, the transaction volume was 788 million yuan, and the order volume was 31.28 million orders.

If it is roughly estimated that the system was "paralyzed" for 12 hours, the accident may cause Didi to lose about 16 million orders, about 250 million yuan in revenue and nearly 400 million yuan in transactions.

Defending the city is the key

As for the specific reason for such a large-scale and long-term paralysis, as of press time, Didi officials have not responded.

Some netizens analyzed that the failure may be caused by two reasons: one is that the database is hung up in batches, and the completion time of the recovery data is uncontrollable, and the other is the infrastructure crash caused by the online upgrade, such as the cloud platform crash. Engineers from a number of major Internet companies have also expressed similar views on the "city boundary".

"It looks like the basic service is down and cannot be recovered by switching to other alternative methods, such as a database failure that makes the data inaccessible, or a problem in the entire data center, and the recovery time is slow due to difficulty in locating. A Baidu engineer said.

Although the specific problem is not clear, the more unified view of industry insiders is that this is an internal problem of Didi, not an external one. "If it was due to external influences, the reason should have been reported long ago. A Gaode programmer said to the "city boundary".

Going back in time, similar crashes have happened to Didi a few times before.

In October 2015, Didi crashed for more than 3 hours;In July 2016, Didi's taxi system crashed, and drivers and passengers could not log in;In November 2018, Didi's driver's vehicle information was cleared and he couldn't get out of the car;In October 2019, Didi crashed and couldn't display the route;In September 2020, there was a prompt for network failure in the passenger app in many places;In February 2021, "Didi collapsed" also appeared on the hot search...

Judging from past experience, Didi's failures are mostly due to problems in the infrastructure layer, and basic failures can be fixed on the same day, but this time it may be due to the failure occurring at night, which slows down the repair efficiency.

As a "national-level" App, every failure of Didi Chuxing will trigger a huge reaction in the market, and hot searches will also be arranged, which may be the "sweet burden" of the head enterprise, and the importance of Didi to users can also be seen from the side.

In the about year and a half since Didi was taken off the shelves, the online car-hailing market has once again set off a big war, and friends want to take this opportunity to carve up Didi's market. At first, the encirclement worked, and in a year and a half, Didi's market share slipped from 90 percent to more than 70 percent.

However, in January this year, after the Didi Chuxing app was relaunched, the number of orders ushered in a sharp increase. According to the financial report, in the first quarter of this year, the transaction volume of Didi's core platform reached 2.875 billion, a year-on-year increase of 15.6%, and the transaction volume of China's mobile travel business reached 2.325 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.4%.

As a result, Didi's market share has also stopped falling. According to estimates from the Ministry of Transport, Didi's market share has rebounded to 76% in the first quarter of this year.

The return of the industry bigwigs has achieved remarkable results. In the next two quarters, Didi continued its growth trend. According to the third quarterly report, the total transaction volume of Didi's core platform was 91.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 37%, the total transaction volume of China Travel was 72.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33%, and the total transaction value of international business was 19 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 52%.

During the same period, the total number of orders on Didi's core platform reached 3.579 billion, a year-on-year increase of 34%. Among them, the total number of travel orders in China was 2.878 billion, a year-on-year increase of 32%. According to this calculation, Didi's average daily order volume in the third quarter was 38.9 million, setting a new high for the average daily order volume in a single quarter.

In addition, Didi China's mobility business revenue in the third quarter was 46.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27%, and its international business revenue was 2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28%, and the revenue also hit a new high. In terms of profit, Didi's adjusted profit before income tax in the third quarter was a loss of 300 million yuan, and the adjusted profit before income tax of China's mobility business was a profit of 1.5 billion yuan.

Whether it is the number of orders, revenue, or profit, Didi has delivered an excellent answer sheet in the third quarter, which can be regarded as sweeping away the previous haze in one go. But ride-hailing aggregators are also growing rapidly.

In 2017, AutoNavi Map took the lead in launching the aggregation taxi model, and until now, AutoNavi Map only serves as a platform and does not provide transportation capacity in person. AutoNavi Map uses online maps as the scene to form a demand-side traffic entrance, combined with the transportation capacity of various online car-hailing platforms, so as to form a closed loop of travel services. The existence of aggregation platforms also makes it possible for small and medium-sized online car-hailing platforms to compete with Didi.

In July last year, the Ministry of Transport released the order data of the mainland's online car-hailing aggregation platform for the first time, and in that month, the order volume of the aggregation platform was about 153 million, accounting for 22% of the total order volume of online car-hailing in the same period. By April this year, the number of orders on the aggregation platform reached 196 million, accounting for 27.8% of the total orders for online ride-hailing in the same period.

Once drivers and passengers start to get used to aggregators, Didi will face no small challenges. Since the beginning of this year, Didi has been thinking of various ways to attract users. This accident is also a reminder to Didi that if it wants to retain more passengers, improving service quality is one aspect, and the most important thing is to let passengers open the app first.

Author | Liu Dongxue, Yang Qiao

Edit | Tian Yanlin

Operations | Liu Shan