Recently, the chaotic management of aggregation platforms and the saturation of industry capacity in the online ride-hailing industry have once again attracted attention, and regulators in some cities have guided and rectified the platforms involved.
On June 20, the Qingdao Municipal Transportation Bureau issued a notice on the delivery of the "Notice of Rectification (Correction)" issued to five online car-hailing platform companies, saying that the companies such as Huwo Travel and Ora Taxi violated the provisions of Article 14 of the "Qingdao Passenger Taxi Management Regulations" and no longer met the administrative licensing conditions stipulated in this regulation.
On June 19, the Yulin Municipal Transportation Bureau interviewed a German taxi aggregation platform. The interview pointed out that a German taxi aggregation platform has problems such as the lack of implementation of the main responsibility of the enterprise and the suspected disrupting of the order of fair competition in the market. Aggregation platforms should assume the main responsibility and take effective measures to promote the standardized, healthy, and sustainable development of online ride-hailing business.
On June 19, when Zeng Kaijun, director of the Kunming Municipal Transportation Bureau, answered calls from the masses at the 12345 hotline center, Zeng Kaijun said that Kunming plans to implement dynamic regulation and control of the total number of online car-hailing vehicles in July this year, and suspend the issuance of online car-hailing vehicle transportation certificates. At the same time, the industry management department will scientifically regulate the capacity of the online car-hailing platform based on the safety production, compliance rate, offline service and management capabilities of the online car-hailing platform company, strictly control the transportation capacity and capital investment of the asset company, and guide social resources and funds to enter the Kunming online car-hailing market rationally.
From the perspective of industry development, the traffic of aggregation platforms is gradually increasing, but there are still many problems in market order. On the issue of capacity saturation, since last year, many cities have issued capacity saturation warnings, and many cities have suspended the issuance of relevant certificates, but the market still has a situation of "more monks and less porridge".
The responsibilities of aggregator platforms need to be further regulated
According to Frost & Sullivan, the proportion of ride-hailing orders fulfilled through aggregator platforms has increased from 3.5% in 2018 to 30.0% in 2023, and the proportion of orders from aggregator platforms is gradually increasing.
The prospectus of several mobility companies also mentions the importance of aggregator platforms. Ruqi Travel said in the prospectus that the number of orders fulfilled by the platform from the third-party travel service platform has been increasing, and the orders of the third-party platform have increased significantly from 18.7 million orders in 2022 to 57 million orders in 2023, accounting for 58.6% of the total orders from 28.3% in 2022.
Cao Cao said in the prospectus that in 2021, 2022 and 2023, the GTV of orders received by Cao Cao from the aggregation platform will be 3.9 billion yuan, 4.4 billion yuan and 8.9 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 43.8%, 49.9% and 73.2% of the company's total GTV in the same period. Cao Cao expects that orders facilitated through multiple aggregators will continue to increase to provide more effective user traffic conversions while retaining loyal users.
As the influence of aggregator platforms increases, so does the dependence of mobility companies on them, bringing risks to the development of the platform. Ruqi Travel said in the prospectus that the average monthly active passengers, average ride frequency and annual passenger retention rate of the platform's online ride-hailing services decreased from 1.16 million, 10.2 and 31.0% in 2022 to 997,000, 9.0 and 27.8% in 2023, mainly due to the increasing number of orders fulfilled by the platform from third-party travel service platforms.
Cao Cao also mentioned the risks of the aggregation platform in the prospectus, saying that the aggregation platform industry may be consolidated. If the Company is only able to choose from a small number of aggregators that can provide the required user facilitation services, the Company may have to accept adverse terms due to its bargaining power.
Not only that, compared with self-operated platforms, there are still more things that need to be rectified in aggregation platforms. In May this year, the Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Department held a working meeting on the aggregation platform of the online car-hailing industry, notified the recent resale of orders, and put forward requirements for each aggregation platform, requiring self-inspection and self-correction, qualification verification and filing of existing access platforms, vehicles and personnel, and timely rectification of problems found; At the same time, it operates in accordance with laws and regulations, prohibits the resale of orders, and reasonably sets the percentage of commissions to protect the legitimate rights and interests of drivers and passengers.
When the Yulin Municipal Transportation Bureau interviewed a certain German platform, it was required to reasonably formulate and implement the platform algorithm, file the algorithm with the relevant departments according to the regulations, implement the sunshine commission, and avoid excessive commission. At the same time, it is necessary to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of passengers, and the aggregator platform and the online car-hailing platform it cooperates with should establish and improve the first question responsibility system, and promptly and properly handle the platform's consultation and complaints.
On April 26 last year, the Ministry of Transport and other five departments jointly issued the "Notice on Effectively Doing a Good Job in the Standardized Management of Online Car-hailing Aggregation Platforms", which gave online car-hailing aggregation platforms a clearer regulatory direction.
In terms of law enforcement, on May 23 and 17, the Suzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau issued an announcement to revoke the business qualifications of seven online car-hailing platforms, including Yicheng Travel, Richu Travel, Lebao Yongche, Kuailai Car, and Jiujiu Special Car, which do not have offline service capabilities.
Capacity saturation is still an issue
In addition to the need for governance of aggregation platforms, the online car-hailing industry has faced the problem of capacity saturation since last year. According to the online car-hailing regulatory information exchange system, as of April 30, 2024, a total of 6.964 million online car-hailing driver licenses have been issued in various places, an increase of 28.8% compared with the same period in 2023, higher than the growth rate of orders.
Specific to a single company, the growth rate of drivers is also higher than the growth rate of orders. According to the prospectus of Ruqi Travel, in 2021, 2022 and 2023, the daily order volume of online car-hailing services will be 126,000, 181,000 and 267,000, respectively, and the daily order growth rate in 2021 and 2022 will be 42.3% and 47.6% respectively. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, the average monthly active drivers of Ruqi Travel will be 11,900, 18,600 and 36,800, and the growth rate in 2021 and 2022 will be 56.3% and 97.8% respectively, which is higher than the growth rate of orders. In addition, Ruqi's average monthly active passengers in 2023 fell to 997,000 from 1.161 million in 2022.
Drivers are most likely to feel the decline in income. Master Wang, an online car-hailing driver in Chengdu, told Yicai, "When I first entered the industry in 2021, the starting price was 10.25 yuan, and now the starting price of orders from third-party platforms is sometimes only 7 yuan." Taking a 20-kilometer order as an example, in the past, an order could get more than 40 yuan, but now it has dropped a lot. In addition to the price, the number of orders is also declining, Master Wang said that when he first entered the industry, he could receive 20 orders a day, and at present, there are up to 15 orders, "Before running a day, there was a turnover of more than 500 yuan, and now the turnover of more than 200 yuan is normal." On weekends, if the platform has a reward subsidy, it may cost 400 to 500 yuan to run for 10 hours, and even if there is a reward from Monday to Thursday, it may be more than 300 yuan. ”
In the past year, many places have issued early warnings of capacity saturation, including Suzhou, Chongqing and other cities. On April 11, the Shenzhen Municipal Transportation Bureau issued a reminder on the operation dynamics and risks of the online car-hailing industry, and said that Shenzhen's online car-hailing market has become saturated, and in recent years, practitioners have successively withdrawn from the Shenzhen online car-hailing industry after evaluation. On April 16, the Chongqing Municipal Transportation Commission issued a risk reminder for online car-hailing investment and operation in the first quarter, saying that in the first quarter, there were about 65,000 online car-hailing vehicles in Chongqing with an average monthly attendance (monthly order receiving records), accounting for 54.7% of the total number of online car-hailing vehicles in the central urban area. With the scale of existing orders, it is actually difficult to support all 118,000 online car-hailing vehicles in the central city to participate in the operation and service, and the vehicle capacity has far exceeded the actual demand.
On May 20, the Jingdezhen Transportation Bureau of Jiangxi Province issued the "Notice on Issuing the Risk Early Warning of Jingdezhen Online Taxi Reservation Industry", indicating that due to factors such as the rapid increase in the number of online car-hailing and employees, the average daily order of online car-hailing bicycles in the urban area is about 15, and the average daily operating income of bicycles is about 240 yuan, and the capacity of online car-hailing in the urban area tends to be saturated.
From the perspective of the overall development of the industry, the income dilemma of drivers is mainly due to the growth of the supply side of the industry exceeding the growth of the demand side. Ji Xuehong, director of the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, told Yicai that the high commission of the platform or the fixed price is not the fundamental reason, but the fundamental reason is the imbalance between the growth rate of the supply side and the demand side. The growth rate of drivers is faster than the growth rate of orders, so the revenue of drivers last year and this year has declined compared with the previous two years. Ji Xuehong believes that the solution mainly depends on the information issued by the government and the regulation of the market, when some drivers think that the income and pay do not match, they will choose to leave, and the number of drivers will return to a stable state through market adjustment. At present, many drivers are not optimistic about the development of the industry, mainly because the number of online car-hailing orders has stabilized in the past two years, and with the increase in the number of drivers, they can only rely on time to exchange income.
(This article is from Yicai)
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