In September 2014, Uber was the first to launch UberPool products in San Francisco, USA. The so-called carpooling is to allow two or more groups of passengers to successfully ride together and be able to fight together.
At the time, the idea of ​​the Uber team was very simple. It was to smoothly take the two passengers together in the relative detour to give them more favorable prices. This more favorable price will be lower than the passengers driving their own cars and parking themselves.
After nearly 10 months of operation, Uber brought Carpool this product to Chengdu in July 2015, followed by successive launches of carpooling operations in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen.
In July of this year, the first anniversary of the appearance of carpool products in the Chinese market. According to a data released by Uber China:
China is the country with the largest number of carpoolers and is the favorite carpooler, with 10% of new carpool users per week;
Up to now, the total number of Uber carpool orders in 15 cities in China has exceeded 30 million each month;
In the 15 cities covered by all Uber carpools, the average success rate of carpooling is as high as 80%, while in the core business districts of the first-line cities in the morning and evening peaks, the success rate of carpooling can be as high as 97%.
In the carpooling business, half of the cities currently have a breakeven balance, including profit in more than 5 cities in the first and second tiers;
Uber China Operations Manager Li Dunyang told us that China is the world’s largest number of Uber carpoolers and is also a country that loves carpooling. The volume of carpool orders increased from zero orders in Chengdu to 15 cities in 2016, and increased from 0 to 30 million in high multiples. This figure is the highest in the world.
People's Uber+carpooling is Uber's further expansion into the mass market. Li Dunyang said Uber's carpooling is different from previous products. It is a multi-win-win business model that allows multiple passengers and one driver to share more overlapping journeys, maximizing the efficiency of the market.
According to data provided by Uber, for drivers, the driver earns an average of 15% more per hour per hour compared to a single person in the past; for the occupants, the user's carpool travel time is better than “Ride†was only 3 to 5 minutes longer, with an average saving of RMB 5.64 per ticket. The Uber team hopes to bring higher income to drivers through the carpooling business, while bringing lower prices to passengers.
From a strategic point of view, there is an unconfirmed message: The key strategic intention of Uber's choice to introduce UberPool (People's Uber+) was to criticize the momentum that was strong at the time. In June last year, they drove down and went online, because the price was lower than DDT Express and the people were highly favored. Uber had a car-sharing business on-line in July last year. The price was lower than the Uber's 30%, and it was even lower than the drop.
In the past year, in order to gain more share of the Chinese travel market, Uber and Didi have been conducting money-burning wars in the form of subsidies. In order to expand its business in China, Uber’s official revealed that it has lost US$1 billion in China in one year. Despite no similar figures released by Dickey, some media calculated roughly that DDT would lose at least RMB 10 billion in 2015. The entire car market spent about RMB 20 billion in subsidies last year.
As of this year, the subsidies for various platforms have gradually eased, and senior officials of all parties have declared that the subsidy era has passed. In the trial and error period, after the education users form a scale, the taxi platform is also shifting from burning wars to technical operations. The future may be the competition of various taxi platforms in algorithms, product innovation and user experience.
