In April, ride-hailing giant Didi announced it had raised more than $5.5 billion. On December 21, Didi Chuxing announced that it had completed a new round of equity financing of over us $4 billion, in which it will increase its investment in artificial intelligence. This year, Didi chuxing raised $10 billion to fund its ai push. The fundraising, which will end this year, values Didi Chuxing at around $56 billion, higher than Uber’s market valuation.
Didi Chuxing subversives the traditional way of taking a taxi, enabling users to book a car online through the online platform, improving the consumption experience and providing convenience for people’s travel. Today, as Didi Chuxing gets bigger and bigger, its ambitions are getting bigger and bigger. After entering the outside market and launching the delivery model, Didi Chuxing also launched an attack on new energy vehicles and autonomous driving.
Driven by technology, Didi Chuxing has seized the opportunity
According to the 40th China Internet Network Development Statistics report released by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), as of June this year, the size of China’s online taxi users has reached 278 million, an increase of 53.29 million compared with the end of last year, a growth rate of 23.7%. According to BDR data center monitoring data, in the second quarter of this year, the number of private car users in China reached 210 million, among which didi Chuxing became the market leader with a high user coverage rate of 86.5%, while Uber, Yidao and other travel platforms only accounted for 8.9% and 6.2% respectively.
In August last year, Didi Chuxing signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Uber China, which means that Didi Chuxing has dominated the entire Chinese ride-hailing market, except for some small ride-hailing companies such as Yidao. As a giant in the ride-hailing industry, Didi Chuxing has become the preferred travel platform for most Chinese people.
In order to further seize the market, In recent years didi Chuxing has also begun to make layout in the field of intelligent transportation and new energy vehicles. In intelligent transportation, through the analysis of the road situation to control the change of traffic lights, to meet the needs of pedestrians and vehicles, for didi enterprises to pull good impression; In the new energy vehicles, by “charging” to replace the traditional car refueling, greatly saving the cost. Today, 260,000 electric cars have been launched on the Didi Chuxing platform.
As early as 2015, Didi Chuxing began to deploy intelligent travel. In order to enter the field of intelligent driving more quickly, Didi Chuxing established a machine learning research institute, which was later upgraded to Didi Research Institute. Just recently, at the fourth World Internet Conference on December 4, Cheng Wei, CEO of Didi Chuxing, said that Didi chuxing will develop towards sharing new energy vehicles in the layout of future cars. As an online ride-hailing giant, Didi will naturally play a significant role in promoting the new energy vehicle industry.
Now, travel has been speeded up to 1 million electric car investment and put on the pace, with GEIDCO (global energy Internet development cooperation organization) to establish the global new energy automobile service co., LTD., launched in December little orange charging service for electric cars, and even will exceed 1 billion yuan investment layout time-sharing car rental business, Opening up the car rental market, but also started to layout driverless cars…
Didi has been really busy this year.
Didi Chuxing entered a new field, but it is difficult to move forward under the pressure of foursquare
In the past five years, Didi Chuxing has enjoyed smooth development, becoming the top ride-hailing company in China in just five years. With such success, Didi Chuxing is not content with its own travel business and is gradually expanding into other areas. The huge fund of Didi Chuxing provides basic guarantee for it, enabling Didi to enter other industries more quickly. But will Didi chuxing make a lot of money by casting a wide net?
Enterprises are not satisfied with the status quo and will certainly seek development and reform, which has become the industry norm. As the largest travel platform in China, Didi Chuxing’s outward development is inevitable in order to gain more users and expand its own market. But there are bound to be many problems in the process. As bike sharing and car sharing become popular in China, there are more options for people to travel. The emergence of bike-sharing and car-sharing is a big impact on Didi Chuxing.
Meituan Taxi was launched on February 14, Valentine’s Day this year. Meituan taxi, which has been tested for 10 months, announced on December 28 that it will be launched in seven cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Wenzhou and Xiamen. According to Analysys, meituan-Dianping has around 150 million monthly active users, which provides meituan-Dianping with a large number of user resources. The entry of Meituan Dache gives Didi Chuxing a strong competitor.
In addition to meituan into the network car booking industry, Ctrip also intends to network car booking layout. Recently, some netizens found that Ctrip’s official website page appeared private car, car rental business, it seems that Ctrip may become another member of the online car booking. Didi Chuxing has added an invisible rival.
Second, not long after Meituan launched its ride-hailing business, Didi Chuxing began to launch its distribution business. However, in terms of its development model, Didi, which focuses on travel, does not understand the takeout business and its operation model. It is afraid that entering the game hastily will bring greater risks to Didi Chuxing. Meanwhile, under attack and pressure from meituan, Ele. me, Baidu Waimai and other food delivery platforms outside the food delivery industry, Didi Chuxing has found many enemies.
Moreover, Didi Chuxing, which has always been in a dominant position in China, seems to want to play with ecology. But frequent strategic moves are likely to make Didi penny wise and pound foolish, and its forays into new territory are a sign of its ambitions. However, by casting a wide net, Didi Chuxing may eventually lose its focus, put the cart before the horse, and even the basic ride-hailing business will be split up.
Moreover, in order to expand its territory, Didi Chuxing has dabbled in so many areas that it has no time for driverless vehicles. Didi Chuxing is not comfortable in a corner. Because it covers a wide range of industries, Didi Chuxing needs to “multitask”, especially in the relatively wide blue ocean such as self-driving cars, Didi Chuxing cannot be single-minded. However, as an industry with both high opportunities and high risks, the asset-heavy model and complex industrial chain structure are beyond the reach of ordinary enterprises. Leeco’s misstep and Didi’s layout of autonomous driving have undoubtedly led to greater risks than opportunities.
Finally, in terms of intelligent transportation, although it has brought a lot of convenience to urban transportation by virtue of the analysis of big data and people’s demand for road transportation. However, at present, the development of intelligent transportation is not mature. As it is still in the exploration stage, the technology and intelligence degree are still to be improved, which makes the operation process of intelligent transportation frequent problems. For example, in terms of real-time dynamic data processing, Compared with BAT and other Internet giants, Didi Chuxing still lacks a lot of hard conditions. Moreover, there are still errors in the analysis of road conditions, and its accuracy needs to be improved.
Big financing, casting a wide net, Can Didi get what it wants?
Didi Chuxing has been able to develop into the largest ride-hailing platform in China within five years, which proves its operational mode and strong profitability. Therefore, although Didi has chosen to set foot in all aspects of travel, it is not impossible for It to break barriers and move forward.
Today, Didi Chuxing has taken over half of China’s ride-hailing market, but if it stops innovating and stands still, it may be overtaken by other ride-hailing platforms such as Yidao. Therefore, it is necessary to expand business and launch businesses consistent with didi Chuxing’s own positioning. However, when developing other businesses, it should not be too hasty. For example, didi must go deep into the takeout market, understand the prevailing takeout mode in the market, and develop takeout methods that fit its own business. In this way, Didi will steadily promote the takeout industry and lay a solid foundation, so that there will not be a situation of “multiple difficulties”.
In the era of rapid development of science and technology, driverless cars will inevitably replace traditional manual driving and become the main form of people’s travel in the future. It is understandable that Didi Chuxing sees this market and starts to set out its layout. But Didi should also be aware of the fact that compared with AI giants like Baidu and international brands like Tesla and Google’s autonomous driving offensive, in terms of technology, money and experience, Didi is difficult to withstand. So Didi Chuxing must be prepared to play a long game in the face of driverless cars.
Didi Chuxing has yet to crack international markets, a problem that has rankled. The reason for this situation is that Didi’s development model in China cannot be well localized in other countries and cannot be accepted by foreign friends. Therefore, it is necessary for Didi Chuxing to open up the international market and further expand its scale to formulate appropriate development strategies based on local conditions and provide flexibility and flexibility for business.
In a word, didi Chuxing, as a leader in the ride-hailing industry, has a strong voice that makes every step of its strategy hot. However, didi needs to keep cooling down and keep alert to ensure the stable market of ride-hailing business and always leave a way out for itself. However, if Didi Chuxing wants to penetrate into other fields and even open up the international market, it needs to slow down its pace and lay the “foundation” first before starting to “build a house”.
Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110