Easy to use cars aimed at Chinese tourists in the U.S. call car market blank

Ma Weimin correspondent from Beijing every time

Recently, domestic taxi software easy to car announced a low profile into overseas markets, the first three cities in the United States locked in San Francisco, New York and Phoenix.

With a drop of taxi, fast taxi is different, easy to car service vehicles provided are rental cars and private cars. Users can travel needs, booking car time, destination and model, the order is generated, the driver of the order to contact the user to provide car service at the designated location.

In fact, to enter overseas markets, other domestic taxi software is also eager. Li Xiaodan, vice president of AA car rental, told the Daily Economic News reporter that although the domestic application of car to enter the overseas market will encounter acclimatization, but it is inevitable to go out, AA car rental will also landed overseas markets, the time point of temporary Inconvenient to disclose.

Expand outbound car service

It is understood that the easy-to-car first opened in San Francisco, New York and Phoenix are located in the western, eastern and central South America, service models include Infiniti FX35, BMW 7 Series, Honda Odyssey, Nissan Bluebird and Toyota Camry. According to easy to car related responsible person disclosed that each city about 20 to 30 vehicles.

Easy to car landing overseas markets, more aimed at growing overseas tourism groups.

According to the 2013 China Visitor Analysis Report released by the U.S. Department of Commerce, over 1.8 million Chinese tourists traveled to the United States in 2013, an increase of over 300% over 2009. The US Department of Commerce, National Tourism and Tourism Administration predicts that by 2017, the number of Chinese tourists to the United States will double and become one of the largest overseas markets in the United States.

Easy car to the person in charge of the "Daily Economic News" reporter, said the company's overseas business mainly to overseas Chinese and tourists to provide Chinese car service and Mandarin local travel guidance.

Insiders pointed out that easy to use the car the layout is mainly from the perspective of the online travel industry chain, a large number of Chinese tourists to the United States may encounter problems of language barrier, customs and other issues, the Chinese car service can solve some of the user travel Demand, combined with the advantages of localization, can extend more service space.

In fact, the shuttle service has been one of the mainstream businesses for taxi applications. In the domestic market, taxi software and online travel sites have been cooperation, users will get a certain amount of ticket purchase voucher, and the corresponding replacement of resources. Easy to car landing overseas markets, can be seen as a copy of such business.

"Car service and online travel combined, in essence, can be regarded as online travel industry, value-added services, to the specific use of the scene, is the user to buy air tickets to reach their destination, the taxi software to complete the shuttle service, which is online Travel sites do not have, but also taxi application expertise. "Xu Wei, senior industry expert told the" Daily Economic News "reporter.

Avoid competing positively with Uber

Easy to car into the United States market, it is inevitable that the US taxi Uber competition.

Founded four years ago, Uber expanded rapidly from 25 cities in 12 countries to nearly 70 cities in 25 countries around the world, averaging an average of one weekly march.

Last July, Uber won $ 360 million in round C financing from Google Venture Fund and private equity Texas Pacific Group.

In February of this year, Uber formally entered the Chinese market and has opened its services in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. It is reported that in June Uber completed the round D financing 1.2 billion US dollars, valuing 18.2 billion US dollars.

In the face of such a strong competitor, easy to car to expand overseas markets will face difficulties? In this regard, easy to car related to the person in charge revealed that the company's current overseas operations to pick-up machines and to provide local-based travel mainly. The company locked a more vertical target customer base - Chinese tourists traveling to the United States, using their native language advantages, to seize this part of the market. Easy to use the car for the first time the United States opened three cities, there are a large number of Chinese groups.

"Vertical outbound travelers, both to avoid the giants such as Uber and direct competition, but also test the water, after all, the market is also a mother tongue car service is still blank." Xu told the "Daily Economic News" reporter.

Car software is facing regulatory risks

In our country, the taxis need to obtain the appropriate operational qualifications on the road, taxi drivers also need to obtain the appropriate certificate before formal operation.

Part of the easy-to-use vehicles come from rental companies and some from private car owners. Private car owners can apply to become easy-to-use car drivers. After completing the application and training, the data of private cars will be displayed in Easy-to-use App and the driver Available through the car to provide easy-to-back orders. A freelance car part-time driver said, "run quickly, a few thousand dollars a month no problem."

In general, the car can be divided into three categories according to attributes, operating vehicles, non-operating vehicles and rental vehicles, China's law provides that vehicles without qualification may not be operating operations. Easy-to-car model is equivalent to private car owners can pick up passengers through the easy-to-live, easy to get into the car. These do not operate qualified private car taxi business, in a sense, the suspect black car.

One car rental person told the "Daily Economic News" reporter, usually, the lease of the vehicle requires the purchase of indicators, and strict distinction between the operating vehicle. "Strictly speaking, car rental companies can only provide vehicles, can not provide drivers, otherwise it is against the law."

Taxi applications "secret" is that, after signing an agreement with the car rental company, the driver will be anchored to a third-party service company, the user put forward car needs, the driver will be able to open a rental company's vehicles to provide services, so that to some extent To avoid legal risks.