As a major reshuffle of online ride-hailing services approaches, why can’t car companies master “sharing”?
2024-08-07
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Recently, the Hangzhou Transportation Bureau cancelled the registration of 11 platforms including Yidao Car Rental, Boyue Travel, Ora Travel, eHi Car Rental, and Ge Shang Travel in accordance with the law, based on the situation of "administrative license expiration and failure to renew" stipulated in Article 70 (1) of the Administrative Licensing Law, which has attracted widespread attention in the consumer market.
As one of the main ways of daily travel, online taxi booking (hereinafter referred to as online taxi) has long become an important part of people's daily life. Among the list of online taxi companies that have been deregistered, there are many online taxi companies that are deployed by automobile companies. At a time when the "new four modernizations" technology in the automobile market is developing so rapidly, as the last piece of the transformation and development of automobile companies, why are automobile companies not as smooth as expected in "sharing"?
Market reshuffle accelerates
With the acceleration of my country's urbanization process and the increasing demand for travel by consumers, online ride-hailing has become more and more popular as a flexible and convenient way of travel. According to statistics from the China Internet Information Center, by the end of 2023, the number of online ride-hailing users in my country will reach 528 million, accounting for 48.3% of the total number of Internet users, an increase of nearly 100 million year-on-year; while the number of users of traditional taxis has shown a downward trend. The scale of online ride-hailing users ranks at the forefront of the industry among various Internet applications.
According to statistics from the National Online Car-hailing Regulatory Information Interaction Platform built by the China Communications and Information Center, as of June 30, a total of 354 online car-hailing platform companies in the country have obtained online car-hailing platform operating licenses. According to industry estimates, the scale of my country's online car-hailing market will further increase to 386.4 billion yuan this year.
It is worth noting that while the online car-hailing market is expanding rapidly, an industry reshuffle has also quietly begun. Since the beginning of this year, more than 100 platform companies have had their online car-hailing business licenses cancelled or revoked.
On April 29, the Qiqihar Municipal Transportation Bureau revoked the "Online Taxi Booking Business License" of 16 online taxi-hailing platform companies, including the Qiqihar Branch of Harbin Lepin Technology Co., Ltd.; on May 22, the Guiyang Municipal Transportation Committee issued an announcement to revoke the online taxi-hailing business license of the Guiyang Branch of Sichuan Shenzhouxing Online Taxi Service Co., Ltd. (Xiao La Travel) in accordance with the law, because the platform had serious safety hazards and no longer had the online taxi service capabilities and safety production conditions in Guiyang; on June 24, Changchun announced the revocation of the business licenses of 11 online taxi-hailing platforms, and the reason for the revocation of the licenses of these platforms was that they had no offline operation capabilities. In addition, Qingdao City, Kunshan City and other places have also issued a list of online taxi-hailing platforms that have been ordered to rectify within a time limit, and began to clean up some local "zombie platforms" that have no actual operation capabilities.
In terms of the reasons for cancellation, some are because the license expired and was not renewed, and some are because the online ride-hailing platforms voluntarily withdrew, but a larger part was forced to clear out due to lack of offline service capabilities and failure to meet regulatory requirements.
An Guangyong, an expert from the Credit Management Committee of the All-China Mergers and Acquisitions Association, said in an interview with a reporter from China Consumer News that the online car-hailing market has been dominated by large-scale platforms, and other companies face fierce competition when entering, making it difficult to obtain sufficient market share. In addition, with the development of the online car-hailing market, local regulations on online car-hailing are becoming increasingly strict, and companies need to invest a lot of resources to meet operating standards, and operating costs have also increased.
Brand influence is the key
In this industry reshuffle, the online car-hailing companies under automobile companies are the ones that have attracted the most attention from the consumer market. Originally, automobile companies hoped to fill their own "sharing" gaps by entering the online car-hailing market after completing electrification, intelligence and networking, and to seek new development in the shared travel field. However, judging from the actual results, the road to online car-hailing dominated by automobile companies has not been smooth.
Take ORA Mobility as an example. It is a shared travel brand launched by Great Wall Motors in July 2017. Its main business is to provide consumers with online travel services with "fast car prices and private car quality". However, it has been shrouded in negative news recently due to poor management. Since the beginning of this year, ORA Mobility has had its business license revoked or its online car-hailing operating qualifications revoked in Hangzhou, Changchun, Qingdao and other places. Previously, ORA Mobility expected to upgrade its brand and strive to create a new form of urban smart transportation in response to changes in the development trend of the consumer market, but the results are not ideal at present.
In fact, the crisis in the development of the ORA travel brand is related to the gradual marginalization of ORA Automobile's market position. According to Great Wall Motors data, from January to June this year, the cumulative sales of the ORA brand were 31,749 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 32.87%, making it the automobile company with the largest decline among all Great Wall Motors brands. In addition, ORA Automobile has always overemphasized its market positioning for women, which may have limited its audience range. It is worth mentioning that in 2020, ORA Travel also provided lifetime free car service for some specific groups of people. But now that ORA Travel has been deregistered in many places, I wonder how the original promise will be fulfilled?
In addition, the Green Dog travel platform launched by Beijing Auto in 2014 has also quietly withdrawn from the mainstream consumer market. In this regard, Yuan Shuai, deputy secretary-general of the Zhongguancun Internet of Things Industry Alliance, said in an interview with a reporter from China Consumer News that traditional car companies entered the online car-hailing field, hoping to take advantage of the development opportunities of new energy vehicles to open up the smart travel market and increase brand market share. However, the main reasons for the poor actual operation are fierce market competition, high operating costs, and the deviation between market demand and expectations. "The failure of car companies in the field of 'sharing' has had a profound impact on their market strategic layout. It exposes the challenges and risks of car companies in diversified transformation, especially the lack of market judgment, operation management and resource integration capabilities in new business areas. This may cause car companies to be more cautious in future strategic planning, especially in emerging fields."
An Guangyong bluntly stated that the business failure of automobile companies in the shared travel field may damage the brand image and affect consumers' trust in their innovation capabilities and market sensitivity.
Expect service quality upgrade
In recent years, with the rapid development of the "New Four Modernizations" technology, the travel service field focusing on the concept of "sharing" has undoubtedly become the main battlefield for car companies to expand their market development. However, practice has shown that the performance of car companies in shared travel is far less smooth than expected. Li Bin, the founder of Weilai, recently made it clear that "Weilai will never get involved in the field of driverless taxis."
Not long ago, the General Office of the Ministry of Transport proposed in the "Work Plan for Expanding the Scope, Improving the Quality and Increasing the Efficiency of Accessible Transportation Services for the Aged in 2024" that the coverage of taxi call or online car-hailing "one-click taxi call" services should be expanded to basically achieve full coverage in cities at the prefecture level and above. It can be seen that meeting consumers' travel needs is still an effective way to solve the fierce market competition.
Yuan Shuai believes that the key to making shared travel more in line with the needs of mainstream consumer groups is to deeply understand and meet the diverse and personalized needs of consumers. First, it is necessary to improve service quality, including vehicle safety, driver quality, service attitude, etc., to ensure the comfort and peace of mind of passengers during travel. Secondly, big data, artificial intelligence and other technical means should be used to optimize the travel experience, such as intelligent scheduling, accurate recommendations, personalized services, etc., to improve travel efficiency and convenience.
A few days ago, a travel service company announced that it will officially launch a fulfillment subsystem on September 1 to curb drivers from canceling orders in violation of regulations and improve passenger experience. It can be seen that the competition in the online car-hailing market has entered the second half, and competing in service may become the focus. (China Consumer News reporter Wu Bofeng)
Source: China Consumer News
