Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

On September 19th, a ride-hailing function was added to WeChat’s main interface.

On the day of its launch, it brought Fast Taxi over twenty million impressions, with a click-through rate of 11.4%, a campaign page conversion rate of 37.2%, and an increase of 890,000 orders.

The order completion rate was 87.4%, with the number of actually fulfilled orders at 778,000.

With the boost from Penguin’s traffic, the market gap between Fast Taxi and DiDi Dache widened rapidly. From an original 80-20 market split, DiDi Dache lost another five percent of its market share in a single day.

Li Yanhong immediately panicked. He urgently called a meeting with Shen Li from the LBS business unit, Gong Zhenbing from Lashou Network, Wang Zhongpu from Qian Du Delivery, and Xiang Hailong, the CEO of DiDi Dache, to discuss countermeasures.

「The autumn air in Yanjing was slightly cool inside the conference room on the top floor of the Qian Du Mansion.」

Li Yanhong sat ramrod straight, his face taut. He threw a data report onto the table and said in a low voice, ”15% to 85%. DiDi Dache is getting utterly crushed by Fast Taxi. When Cheng Wei was the CEO of DiDi, he could at least maintain a market share of 20% to 25%.”

When Xiang Hailong heard this, his heart skipped a beat. He knew the boss’s words were directed at him, and playing dumb wouldn’t get him out of this. Steeling himself, he braced himself and replied:

”Boss, Fast Taxi is backed by Penguin and Senlian Capital. Not even counting third-party traffic acquisition channels, just the user traffic from WeChat, QQ, Toutiao, Pinbei, Lingxi Browser, and the Orange Application Mall alone can generate tens of millions, even hundreds of millions, of impressions for them. Our app’s download volume is only one-fifth of theirs.”

Hearing this, Li Yanhong’s brow slowly furrowed, and the atmosphere in the room grew even more oppressive.

Gong Zhenbing and Wang Zhongpu exchanged a look but said nothing.

Shen Li, from the LBS business unit, pushed up her glasses and sneered inwardly. She had set up entry points for DiDi Dache within Qian Du Map, including prominent spots on the search results and route planning pages, making it convenient for users to hail a car with a single tap.

But Xiang Hailong still managed to make a complete mess of DiDi Dache’s business!

In her opinion, Xiang Hailong was all style and no substance, only good for sucking up to his superiors and monetizing Qian Du’s traffic resources, with absolutely no project management skills.

”Haven’t Map, Search, Browser, Hao123, and our Forums been driving traffic to DiDi Dache?” Li Yanhong demanded, his face darkening.

When users searched for keywords like ”ride-hailing,” ”online car-hailing,” and ”private car service” on Qian Du, DiDi Dache’s graphic ads were always ranked first, receiving an astonishing amount of exposure.

Moreover, it allowed them to reach potential customers with much greater precision.

This question left Xiang Hailong speechless. He couldn’t very well admit that he was less capable than Cheng Wei, could he?

But with the boss asking a direct question, could he dare to play dead?

After a few seconds of silence, Xiang Hailong’s mind raced, and he shifted the blame to Shen Li. ”The Market Department surveyed the user experience on both the passenger and driver sides. Qian Du Map’s real-time traffic data has transmission delays, and its LBS positioning technology isn’t accurate enough...”

”President Xiang, there isn’t much of a technical gap between Qian Du Map and Gaode Map. If you ask me, the bigger problem lies with DiDi Dache’s intelligent order dispatch system.”

Shen Li gave a faint smile, kicking the ball right back to him.

”I need practical, viable solutions, not excuses to shift responsibility.”

Li Yanhong glared at the two of them and snapped irritably.

”If Fast Taxi offers an instant 10-yuan discount, we’ll subsidize 12 yuan! If Fast Taxi offers one discount a day, we’ll offer two! The priority is to win back our users!”

”Boss, President Xiang, I suggest we follow the cross-platform operational strategy of Kuai Pao and Fast Taxi. We can give out ride-hailing coupons to users who order food delivery.”

Wang Zhongpu said with a smile.

After all, DiDi Dache would be covering the marketing expenses, and Qian Du Delivery could boost its order volume in the process.

”We can also give out ride-hailing coupons when users purchase Group Buy deals. They’ll definitely have to go offline to redeem them, so transportation is a core need. This can also create a closed business loop.”

Gong Zhenbing added, jumping on the bandwagon.

”Fast Taxi has three main advantages: first, the convenience of Orange Pay; second, more traffic and larger subsidies than us; and third, an efficient order dispatch system. We can learn from all these strengths. Traffic funnels, viral red envelope campaigns, driver subsidies, joint app marketing—we can do all that too.”

Shen Li picked up the thread, analyzing the situation with clear logic.

It seemed like she had said a lot, but her core message was simple: ’Stop thinking. Just copy Fast Taxi’s operational model directly.’

”The technical issues must be solved, and the marketing and promotion shortcomings must be addressed. We have to match their subsidies! If Fast Taxi subsidizes 10 yuan per ride, we’ll subsidize 12! The priority is to win back the users!”

Li Yanhong declared, sitting up abruptly.

At this moment, to protect DiDi Dache’s market share, he couldn’t even be bothered with the previous verbal agreement and was prepared to openly tear up their truce.

”Yes, Boss,” the three of them replied in unison.

Under Li Yanhong’s direction, Qian Du Network instantly mobilized. Across the homepages of products like Search, Forums, Browser, and its web directory, it began aggressively promoting DiDi Dache through pop-ups, floating windows, and interstitial ads.

Hail a ride, get 1TB of Qian Du Cloud Drive storage!

Purchase a Group Buy package of 10 yuan or more and receive a 10-yuan ride-hailing coupon with no minimum spending requirement upon successful redemption!

Order food delivery, get a 10-yuan coupon!

On Hao123’s PC homepage, a 12-yuan ride-hailing coupon for new users with no minimum spend, as well as random red envelopes worth 8 to 10 yuan for existing users, popped up daily, bringing the subsidy intensity back to what it was a week ago.

Ma Wenteng’s mediation had been ignored not only by Chen Yansen but also by Li Yanhong. They turned on a dime when it suited them.