Why are Uber and Didi obsessed with platform strategy?

In the news about animals, there is often a very happy comment "I have joined KFC luxury lunch now". Netizens' teasing of foreign fast food has become a hot word on the Internet. In fact, it is a common business strategy for enterprises to integrate existing supply chains to provide additional products or services. For example, Uber has personalized services from express delivery to food delivery. After taking a taxi and a special car, Didi has continuously launched products such as express trains and free rides. What many people don't understand is why Uber and Didi don't dig deep into the existing car service and wait for the expected harvest. On the contrary, they rushed into those uncertain market segments, eager to build a complete Internet travel platform. What are the business considerations behind unreasonable choices?

1 seized the potential outlet and restrained the wanton flow of capital.

Li Yanhong once taught entrepreneurs: Always be careful, Tencent has no future! Tencent is not in awe of entrepreneurs. Today, innovation has become more and more destructive and subversive. The seemingly grand business empire is likely to collapse in an instant. * * * Enjoy the rise of the economy and lower the threshold for innovation. Uber business myth is a concrete and subtle example. Uber, recently valued at $50 billion, is a twin star in parallel with Xiaomi in the eyes of venture capitalists, and those once star companies are left behind by it: Ctrip's market value 107, Qunar's 5.8 billion, E Long's less than 700 million, and even Priceline, the shareholder of Ctrip, the number one online travel company in the United States, has a market value of only about 6 10.

In China, Uber's success was quickly replicated by Didi, but this market with two heroes is obviously not calm:

* * * Enjoyment is a double-edged sword. Idle private car resources can be used by Uber and Didi to solve the taxi dilemma and realize other people's ambitions. Here, only the winner takes all, and there is no so-called healthy competition. In the United States, Airbnb and Uber dominate each other and have no rivals. Take Uber as an example, the average daily order has exceeded one million, and the profit is considerable according to the commission of 20% per order. However, Uber, which is well-off, is still aggressive in the capital market, and the planned new round of financing will reach $654.38+05 billion. Travis kalanick is actually forced to take the risk of diluting the original equity.

Because Uber must attack innovative companies such as Raffles and Getaround, the latter's business form determines that once they get capital support, they may use subsidies to compete and disintegrate Uber's supply chain, even if they can't make a profit. In this regard, forward-looking travis kalanick has taken two countermeasures:

First, through continuous financing, the capital market and Uber will form the same interest group, suppressing the financing space of Raffles and Getaround. Up to now, the F-round valuation of Raffles is only $2.5 billion, and Getaround and Relayrides are still insignificant. Uber also pays special attention to the introduction of strategic investors, such as the previous cooperation with Baidu, mainly to prevent competitors from suddenly acquiring strong channel resources and posing a threat to Uber in specific markets. Before Ali's shareholding in Laifu was a signal;

Second, through the expanding product line, it is of special significance for Uber, which is struggling in the whirlpool of public opinion, to maintain the continuous growth of orders and maintain and enhance the stickiness and stability of the platform.

In this respect, Cheng Wei can be regarded as travis kalanick's bosom friend. Didi's services, such as starting express trains and hitchhiking, are similar to Uber's needs. Some time ago, P2P car rental was in the limelight in the capital market, and then carpooling companies got a lot of venture capital, but under the pressure of Uber and Didi, they all died down. The suspension of carpooling is an example.

Trading volume for time, containing policies, public opinion and opponents.

To some extent, Internet travel service is a race against time to become a big, powerful and powerful business giant, which can control a lot of public resources. This is also an effective way to clean up the original sin. The infinitely extended product line can help Uber and Didi gather more social resources, publicize the concept of * * * enjoying innovation and green travel, maintain enough public relations enthusiasm, and influence the future policy direction. Of course, opposition and vested interests always exist. While gathering more allies, Uber and Didi also created more enemies and had to fight hard on three fronts.

In terms of public opinion, Uber and Didi are extremely successful, which is not only conducive to the rapid growth of the post-80 s into the backbone of society, but also benefits from the concept of promoting change from the bottom up. Internet travel companies have won consumers by providing high quality and low price services, while critics have been portrayed as stale conservatives, which is a double victory of marketing and public relations.

Recently, there have been frequent incidents of investigating and handling private cars in various places, and taxi reform and new regulations on private car management are also brewing. At this critical time, Internet travel companies that have received much attention urgently need to make a unified voice, so Uber and Didi quickly entered various market segments, relying on their own scale to crowd out or marginalize small start-ups from the market, reduce noise, and turn themselves into the only object of government dialogue. This is the way to break the game. Otherwise, dramas like Beijing's broken window and Guangzhou's blockade will continue to be staged. It can be said that after many hesitations, the Shanghai Communications Commission finally integrated the taxi company and Didi into a taxi information service platform.

Another factor is the huge controversy between Uber and Didi, both of which are based on private car resources. The phenomenon of zero-sum game is serious, and the income of a family will be wasted. Therefore, both Uber and Didi are desperately expanding and even maintaining unprofitable products, which has become a hidden competition auxiliary line.

3 scale first, profit second ecosystem

Internet tourism is a big business, which is indisputable, but whether and how to make money is still a complicated problem, and there are very different answers in China and the United States. In the United States, Uber is permeated with the founder's fighting philosophy of "fighting against the sky, fighting against people and having endless fun", but its management still follows the traditional business logic, that is, the awe-inspiring core principles in MBA courses. Uber relies more on technical means than price leverage to regulate demand. The secret of supporting travis kalanick's grand vision is that Ube is still a profitable company.

But in China, everything is different. The younger generation grew up eating free online meals. They expect to enjoy the best service at the lowest price. They will carefully calculate the best use of coupons and discounts and are willing to share them. Proud of this, Uber and Didi have to use low prices and subsidies to stimulate and brainwash each other in turn, attracting them to improve this business model, thus giving birth to an ecosystem with the largest scale and the second profit.

As far as the current travel product line is concerned, the special car is a product that is positioned higher than the taxi. Due to fierce competition, drivers' profit margins have been diluted, and the addition of low-end products such as express trains is even worse, but they must persist. Since the price is always based on the market rather than the cost, Uber and Didi can only seek solutions from revenue management means such as dynamic pricing. Carpooling can't see any profit prospects, because the average amount is too low, drivers only have an early adopter mentality, lack service awareness, and passengers' expectations are not high. The operation of the whole system depends on subsidies. Carpooling has many market segments. Although there is a steady demand for carpooling, there are many low-cost solutions in a human society like China. The core purpose of Uber's launch of Uberpool and People's Uber is to win a wider range of users at a low price, stabilize the supply chain and quickly create cash flow of sufficient scale. When explaining Amazon's success, e-commerce tycoon Jeff Bezos once said: "There are only two kinds of companies in the world, one is desperately charging more money, and the other is desperately charging less money. We are the latter. " Uber is obviously inspired by this.

Didi has another ambition. Cheng Wei and Liu Qing certainly know that this product can't be profitable, but it's a vicious circle to pay more than one bill. But Didi strengthens social attributes through guidance. "Meeting is a tacit understanding, and fate is wonderful. I hope you sit in the co-pilot position. " This kind of short message obviously wants to dilute the commercial color of the service and render an occasional atmosphere. Zhou Hang, who is easy to use a car, once dreamed that drivers and passengers should not have a cold service relationship, but should have a benign interaction. You can put the driver away and turn it out from time to time like an old friend. Didi is obviously practicing.

The product attributes of Didi Express are more complicated. Although it effectively offsets Uber's low-price strategy, it also competes with other products of Didi. Another positioning of Didi Express is a substitute for traditional taxis, which shows that Didi has given up the hope of integrating existing taxi resources and started to lay out in advance. However, the advertising copy emphasizes low prices and violently fires at taxis, which seems out of place in the recent harsh environment and directly leads to an interview with the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission.

In the final analysis, whether Uber and Didi "do their best to meet their destiny" will ultimately be decided by the new regulations for special vehicles being brewed. If this new regulation really adheres to the two thresholds of operating qualification and private cars being banned, then the Internet travel market is likely to face a reshuffle.