Here comes the flower pig!

It seems that in an instant, the whole circle of friends is forwarding like "tap water".

"Take a taxi to 0 yuan, quick", "Another taxi software from bonus hunter is said to be owned by Didi, and the Accord is only 9.9 kilometers ...", "Pinduoduo, the flower pig, has a great subsidy, and people in the circle of friends get paid every day" ... as if they don't scratch their wool, they are just like people outside the internet circle.

Flower pig, like an arrow sent by Didi, quickly penetrated into the national 120 cities. According to master cicada's data, "Flower Pig" has occupied the TOP 1 of App Store, App List and Travel List since it was put on the shelves on February 29th, leaving Didi Chuxing behind. "The first place in the overall list is not empty", lamented the founder of a sinking market tourism platform.

The rapidly developing flower pig has recently been included in the drip system. Remarkably, on September 7, Beijing Hongyibo Technology Co., Ltd., the main business entity of Flower Pig, made industrial and commercial changes. Zhao Yibo, the original shareholder, withdrew, and a new shareholder, Beijing Xiao Ju Technology Co., Ltd. (Didi's parent company), held 65,438+000%.

On August 25th, the average daily order of Didi exceeded 50 million. With the rapid sinking of the flower pig, it means that Didi has taken another step away from the order of 654.38 billion.

The other side behind the popularity is that now Huahu has ushered in high-intensity supervision: Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Qingdao, Hefei and other places have stopped or talked. There are two reasons: Didi has not obtained the local network car business license, and the drivers on the platform have no network car transportation license and network car driver's license.

Flower pig wandering on the edge of compliance has been online for nearly 200 days. Can it really carry the ambition of Didi to capture young users? Or is the daily order volume of Didi Great Leap Forward 1 100 million?

After two years of silence, Didi, who is good at fighting, finally came back.

In March this year, a taxi platform named "Flower Pig" was quietly launched in Linyi, Shandong and Zunyi, Guizhou. A network car practitioner told the science and technology planet that Zunyi is now a typical incremental city.

A Didi employee who participated in the Flower Pig Project revealed to the Science and Technology Planet that Didi has been brewing Flower Pig since the end of last year. If there is no epidemic, the online time of Flower Pig is after the Spring Festival holiday. "At that time, it was given two months, and the time was tight and the task was heavy, which was equivalent to creating another Didi, so almost all Didi employees participated."

However, Didi's fighting spirit has not been erased by the epidemic, and it seems that he is trying to find the "lost month". After testing in some cities for 4 months, the time came to July, and the opening advertisement of Flower Pig showed that Didi launched the 100-city travel plan on July 15.

With the slogan of "the first order is free, and 0 yuan takes a taxi", China began to subsidize both drivers and passengers. "In the first few days, taxis were free. The open city invited a new person with a 3 yuan prize. " A Zhengzhou passenger told Science and Technology Planet, "I won 100 yuan".

In terms of drivers, different cities have different rewards.

A drip driver in Chengdu told Science and Technology Planet that his city won five tickets with 50 yuan at the peak of August 25th, and became 40 yuan on August 26th. "He changes every day. Basically, when the morning peak, afternoon peak and evening peak are full, there will be a full-day reward, and when the pigs are spent, there will be a late peak. Basically, when you run five or six orders in each peak period, you will get a reward of tens of dollars, which adds up to almost the same.

However, the driver is also a little puzzled. Flower pig adopts a one-price model, which means that passengers don't need to pay extra whether they encounter traffic jams or high-speed intersections. "In fact, canceling subsidies is just a free ride mode", "I don't take a bite during the peak period" and "it's not cost-effective for piglets to take a bite." ...............................................................................................................

Not only that, many Didi drivers also posted a publicity page of Flower Pig on the car.

"Didi sent it to me, let me post it. If you scan this QR code, I will also have a new reward. " A Didi driver told Science and Technology Planet, "Now most drivers have registered for the Flower Pig Platform, and when there are few Didi orders, they use the Flower Pig to take orders", but drivers cannot take orders with Didi and Flower Pig at the same time.

The new method of pulling flowers and pigs is exactly the same as the early model of Didi. But this time it's different. Today, Didi has grown into a travel giant. The biggest expectation of the market is: When will Didi make a profit? When will it go on sale?

This made Didi executives have to respond.

In May this year, Liu Qing, president of Didi, said in an interview with a reporter from American Consumer News and Business Channel that Didi's current core network car service has turned losses into profits and achieved profitability.

In July, Ali auction platform sent a message about "equity auction of network car platform company". As soon as this news came out, users linked it with Didi Company. CoCo Lee, vice president of Didi, denied that IPO is not the best thing for Didi at present, and the company has no relevant plans at present.

The concerns of the outside world are not difficult to understand. In the past two years, Didi has given way to growth, and the capital requirement for Didi has changed from growth to profit/listing. Business growth is slow and the time to market is uncertain, which intensifies market doubts.

Today, Didi is back in combat mode again.

Interestingly, later, some media reported that Meituan would plan to increase subsidies to users. Users can get a 20% to 30% discount for each order as long as they take a taxi through the exclusive entrance of Meituan Taxi.

The war of network car seems to be ignited again. It is reported that only a pilot city in Linyi, Shandong Province, spends nearly 1 100 million yuan on pigs. However, many users have found that the subsidy for Flower Pig is far less generous than when it was first launched.

A travel platform has made another travel product, and public psychology will inevitably have doubts: What does Didi want to do?

Didi's official reply is: Flower Pig takes a taxi to locate young users, with benefits as the mainstay, and passengers have more small tasks. The more active passengers are, the cheaper they are; For drivers, unlike Didi Quan Assignment, drivers can choose their own orders. A Didi employee said that Huahu's focus was on the tail users of taxis, and there was no clear KPI at that time.

At present, there is no data showing that most users on Didi Travel Platform are mature people. According to the 44th Statistical Report on China's Internet Development released by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), from the age structure, the utilization rate of internet car users among netizens aged 20-29 and 30-39 is 74.0% and 57.0% respectively, which is higher than other age groups.

According to Didi's current strategy, young users mean that they are price-sensitive to some extent, and the target group is more like college graduates from non-first-tier cities.

A former employee of Didi told Science and Technology Planet, "I really don't understand the operation of Baihua Pig. I feel that Didi's action is abnormal, because to some extent, Flower Pig is squeezing Didi's existing market. What is the reason for expansion in this case? "

Another Didi employee also questioned, "Is this another level of horse racing mechanism?" After all, Didi App recently launched a car carpool.

Although there are some different voices inside, the strategy of introducing Didi into Flower Pig is recognized in the industry.

"Didi is actually using Flower Piglets to go to local small platforms in many low-tier cities in PK, or forcing them to become local franchisees of Flower Piglets." A senior investor in the travel industry shared his views with the Science and Technology Planet. "This can be seen as Didi's clearing action."

From the passenger's point of view, price is always the first attraction. This means that the user overlap between Didi and Huahu will remain high for a long time.

In the eyes of Zhihu netizens playing books, Didi can still achieve the purpose of expanding the advertising traffic pool. After all, a user watches advertisements twice and eats two fish. For Didi, the conversion effect of brand advertising is also improved-especially in the taxi scene, the proportion of user traffic is often very high.

"This is actually a normal brand strategy," said the investor. "Many large companies have different brands, aiming to segment vertical markets and users."

Whenever the business strategy of Internet companies is taken seriously, Internet companies will refine their own brands and split up some independent brands to carry the subdivided business, just like Ali's C2C e-commerce brand is Taobao and B2C e-commerce brand is Tmall. When enterprises name their own brands, it means that the importance of this business will be highlighted.

Nowadays, the "flower pig" and "green vegetable carpooling" spun off by Didi can be regarded as an extension of this strategy, "mainly to spread the risk of core brands".

Preferential price is a major feature of Flower Pig. "When the price drops, users will drive more cars, and more orders are more likely to make drivers make money. Expanding coverage is indeed the right direction, and the core is how to expand. " A middle-level employee who left Didi told the technology planet.

From this point of view, Flower Pig is more like a weapon to sprint the daily average order 1 100 million, but this weapon carries certain risks.

Capacity is the core problem that Didi needs to solve.

An investor in the travel industry said that the essence of Didi business is to step on the edge of compliance and illegally operate private cars. This is actually a double-edged sword.

According to the data of the Ministry of Transport, by the end of April this year, more than 950,000 vehicle transport permits and 2.08 million driver's licenses had been issued. In the Report on Mobile Travel and Driver Employment released in September, 2065438+2006, Didi revealed that it has more than150,000 drivers. Based on this, it is speculated that not only Didi, but also most online car platforms are facing the problem of capacity compliance.

However, Didi must find a way to solve the capacity problem. Enough production capacity can meet the needs of enough users, enough users bring enough orders, and enough orders bring enough income.

Walking on the edge of compliance, Flower Pig is born with strong supervision.

On July 13, "Flower Pig" was interviewed by Tianjin Road Transportation Bureau and Transportation Administrative Law Enforcement Corps; At the beginning of August, the platform was directly and completely stopped in Shenzhen; On August 20, Qingdao claimed to have caught 29 "Flower Piglets", and the comprehensive administrative law enforcement detachment of transportation directly claimed in the official account that the Flower Piglet platform was suspected of violating the rules; On September 4th, Zhengzhou Transportation Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment interviewed the person in charge of "Flower Pig" Zhengzhou Branch, and ordered it to stop operation and immediately rectify.

Drivers on the platform are extremely sensitive to this. On August 27th, a driver posted in the "Flower Pig Driver Exchange Group" that he met a drip driver today. He said that it was useless to check the double certificate of Huahua pig in the past two days, and all the documents were taken away. "The car is directly deducted without penalty, and then you can go directly to the flower pig."

Hefei Municipal Transportation Bureau responded: According to the understanding of the Municipal Transportation Management Office, the Flower Pig Platform has not obtained the license of Hefei's network car business, and all its network car business activities in Hefei are illegal.

On the one hand, it is urgent to increase the travel needs of users, on the other hand, it is compliance and supervision. Didi is in a dilemma at present. If a vicious incident occurs again due to compliance issues, Didi's word of mouth will be affected again.

An investor in the travel industry analyzed that Didi's launch of the Flower Pig brand can spread the compliance risk of the core brand Didi, make money quickly, and cut it if it can't hold back. "Travel is infrastructure and the state should be highly regulated."

As a new thing to change the travel industry, online carpooling mode finally ushered in its legal status on 20 18 more than two years after its birth. In the subsequent development, many problems have also been exposed and even caused controversy. As a supplement to public transportation, online carpooling has indeed solved the travel problems of some users. How to guide and standardize the orderly and compliant development of online carpooling industry is an urgent problem for supervision and platform.

Didi, is this moment ready to change?