Reborn: Billionaire in College

August 8, Dongjiang Convention and Exhibition Center.

This time, Amap's strategic conference invited more than a dozen domestic online car-hailing companies of all sizes, as well as some venture capital institutions and news media, but not many real end users.

As soon as the press conference began, Cheng Congwu walked onto the stage calmly.

This also stunned many people, as they originally thought that it would be Chen Pingjiang who would give the speech.

Those sitting in the back row had no idea that Chen Pingjiang didn't even come to the convention and exhibition center, but chose to watch the press conference online.

"Hello everyone, I'm Cheng Congwu, President and CEO of AutoNavi Maps. I just keenly noticed that many people were surprised by my appearance. I know who you want to see, but I'm sorry to disappoint you." Cheng Congwu deliberately spoke in a lighter tone.

Everyone in the audience smiled knowingly when they heard this.

"Today's press conference, we, AutoNavi Maps, as the organizer, invited a number of brother units to come and support us, and jointly launched the AutoNavi aggregated taxi-hailing platform!"

Cheng Congwu went straight to the point and directly pointed out the purpose of the meeting.

Suddenly, there were exclamations from the audience.

Predictions are predictions, but it was still shocking to hear the exact answer come out of Cheng Congwu's mouth.

"Our AutoNavi aggregated taxi-hailing platform has issued coupons within the AutoNavi Map APP. If customers want to use them, they don't need to download a special APP. They can place orders directly within the AutoNavi Map."

"It is worth mentioning that the integrated taxi-hailing service has connected WeChat, Renrengou and Juzi UI systems, truly achieving multi-in-one, allowing taxis to be called anytime and anywhere."

"First, users can place an order directly through the WeChat mini program, AutoNavi, or through AutoNavi in ​​Services - Transportation. What's even better is that if you are chatting with your friends on WeChat and the other party sends a map location on WeChat, you can directly click on the map and choose to take a taxi."

"Similarly, everyone can find taxi options on Renrengou's homepage and the search box of Orange UI, and take a taxi anytime and anywhere without having to download an app."

When Cheng Congwu said this, he paused deliberately to make it easier for the audience to digest what he said.

As he expected, the audience was in an uproar at this moment. The major online ride-hailing companies headed by Cheng Wei and the investment institutions headed by Zhu Xiaohu were all dumbfounded.

How is this still playing?
If you want to take a taxi, just take a taxi. Why are you attacking us from all sides right from the start? How about we give everything to you and then we retreat?

Many investment institutions that had invested in online ride-hailing companies immediately began to curse.

There is really no martial ethics.

If you, AutoNavi, had entered the online ride-hailing industry earlier, we would not have invested in it. Now that we have invested money, you are making a big move?

Jack Ma, Pony Ma, Robin Li and other bigwigs who did not go to the scene also changed their expressions after watching the live broadcast.

Oops, this game is over!
There are at least 350 million smartphones in China now, if not 450 million.

The several APPs and terminals under Chen Pingjiang can perfectly cover all smartphone users.

Needless to say, WeChat and Renrengou itself have extremely high monthly active users.

Even the most basic Amap has already exceeded 100 million installations.

This is such a huge amount, it makes people feel anxious just looking at it.

While other online ride-hailing platforms are still working hard to attract new customers and constantly organize events and promotions, Amap is already standing at the finish line.

How is this fight going?
I can't hit it at all.

Jack Ma: "We can only compete a little by adding Kuaidi to Alipay and Laiwang."

Inside the venue.

Cheng Wei and Wang Gang looked at each other at the same time, and saw the helplessness in each other's eyes.

Is this the strength of a giant?
It was so terrifying.

As soon as the project was launched, it was in Rome.

Cheng Wei whispered, "I admit that the user side is connected, but how do they solve the problem on the driver side? Insufficient transportation capacity means nothing. When the time comes, users will call a taxi twice through AutoNavi and will naturally give up if they can't get a car. Isn't that a loss?"

Wang Gang sighed: "I think they will first promote it in first-tier cities. As long as there are orders, drivers will take the initiative to go there."

"Doesn't that mean we have no chance at all?"

Wang Gang shook his head: "It's not absolute, but the cost of acquiring customers will become very expensive. If we want to attract users to order on Didi, we can only keep issuing coupons. But when it comes to competing for funds, who can beat Chen Pingjiang?"

The same question was also raised by Shen Nanpeng, who was watching the live broadcast with Chen Pingjiang.

Chen Pingjiang just smiled and said, "You will find out if you keep reading."

Shen Nanpeng smiled and shook his head: "As long as you are sure, thank you for helping me make money again."

It feels so good to have your own channel.

It is difficult for outsiders to understand this huge difference.

If I have to make an analogy, it can be described as Tencent and a small, unknown company promoting a small game at the same time.

Small companies can only publish on the platform and spend money.

Tencent can promote it through channels such as WeChat, QQ, and game platforms.

The intensity is naturally incomparable.

The founders of other online ride-hailing platforms all smiled bitterly and shook their heads.

There is no hope of being the first, the best you can do is to be the second.

As for grabbing third place?
Sorry, there is no third place in this industry. They were angry but also felt deeply powerless.

In order to gain a little bit of customer resources, these companies have to work hard on marketing and advertising, but the results may not be good.

But they can really lead the army so easily.

At this time, Cheng Congwu's voice continued to be heard.

"Today, more than a dozen online ride-hailing companies are here at our venue. The reason we invite everyone to attend the conference is to build our aggregation alliance. Yes, we at AutoNavi do not plan to operate our own online ride-hailing company."

"Ok?"

"..."

"Did I hear correctly?"

Just when the heads of these dozen or so online ride-hailing companies were about to feel their hearts sink to the bottom, Cheng Congwu's breakthrough gave them a glimmer of hope.

For a moment, these people were so shocked that they thought they had heard it wrong, and then they looked at Cheng Congwu on the stage eagerly.

"The function of AutoNavi is just like its name. We only help users solve travel problems. We do not recruit drivers and do not have cars on our platform. We define AutoNavi as a one-stop travel service platform that integrates various online ride-hailing services."

"For example, in the "Request a Ride" column, we can see the quotes given by various online ride-hailing partners for the same journey. Users can compare prices at a glance and place an order directly."

"For the first time, we have also segmented vehicles into five categories: taxis, economy cars, comfort cars, business cars, and luxury cars. Users can place orders on multiple platforms at the same time after selecting a category. The company whose car is closest to the user will get the order."

Another village has a bright future!
When these online ride-hailing companies thought that their game was over, they unexpectedly got a pleasant surprise. Not only did AutoNavi not intend to kill them, but it gave them a hand.

Shen Nanpeng, who was watching the live broadcast, also gave Chen Pingjiang a thumbs up.

"Awesome, this is the work of you, Chen Pingjiang. It's so authentic, always making unexpected turns, and they're wonderful turns." Shen Nanpeng praised: "You might have become the common enemy of all online car-hailing companies, but in an instant you became the thigh they had to cling to. Small platforms must cooperate with AutoNavi to support their drivers."

"This is really a big deal. All parties are happy. AutoNavi has steadily built up the aggregation platform, which is an untold fortune. At the same time, it saves the cost of local promotion. There is no need to promote in each city by ourselves. There is no need to worry about transportation capacity. We can just sit back and take the commission."

The best business has always been building a platform.

No matter how much money the anchor makes, he can never earn more than TikTok.

No matter how much money an online store makes, it still has to call Alibaba and Pinduoduo its daddy.

There is no platform that does not make money.

Because the platforms are the ones who make the rules.

But this industry is not like other industries.

Renrengou at least has Meituan as its competitor, so who is Amap’s competitor?

Shen Nanpeng looked around but couldn't find it at all.

Why does Apple make so much money? It’s not necessarily because its terminals make more money. The key lies in the 30% commission it takes from the APP store, which is really ruthless.

But you just can't get rid of it.

The lethality of Cheng Congwu's words is evident.

Ordinary users are naturally happy to see the launch of Amap, which allows them to compare prices from three different companies and place orders at the same time to get a car faster. This was crucial in 2012, when online ride-hailing services had just appeared.

Calling a car quickly is everything!
The most important thing is that it doesn’t matter which platform users choose to take the online ride-hailing car. What they are more willing to see are the discounts brought by competition.

This is undoubtedly a good thing for a small online ride-hailing platform. With this, Gaode will have 3-4 million users and huge daily active users, which will bring huge traffic, far beyond what its own APP can match.

This will obviously help them bring in more business, expand faster, and support more drivers.

As for the fact that Gaode will take a commission, just let it do it. You can still "steal" Gaode's users.

The ones who suffer the most are Cheng Wei of Didi and Lu Chuanwei of Kuaidi, and at most Sun Huanan of Bumblebee Taxi.

The three of them are among the top-tier in terms of strength.

It seems that as long as they sign the contract, Gaode Travel will bring them traffic, but in fact it will have a significant impact on them.

First, the prices of taxis are publicly compared. People who are more sensitive to prices will naturally choose platforms with lower prices. This will force them to engage in price wars, which will seriously affect the pricing of their own APP platforms. To some extent, it will dilute future users.

Furthermore, mobile phone storage space is still relatively precious. If Gaode can meet users' taxi needs, many users will choose to uninstall Didi and Kuaidi apps, which will cause the companies to lose a lot of traffic.

They are not like the "bad students" of those small platforms who are just lying down and just want to earn some money to survive.

These three companies want to grab the market, drivers and users, and ultimately seek to go public.

This move by AutoNavi hit the sore spot for Cheng Wei and others.

To cooperate or not to cooperate, that is the question.

The benefit of cooperation is naturally that it can bring more orders, but it will also increase the value of AutoNavi, and in turn reduce the market share of its own APP.

Just like drugs, they will eventually force companies like Didi and Kuaidi to get closer step by step even though they know the drugs are toxic.

In the end, he was molded by God into the shape he wanted and lost his soul.

But what if you don’t cooperate?
Is it okay to just develop slowly with our own APP?
It is not impossible.

The cost will be much higher, and the day of success will become further away.

Because this is no longer a competition with another platform, but a competition with the entire taxi industry. (End of this chapter)