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The marriage of the two deep pockets may not be a perfect match, and they may involve some challenges in the antitrust field.
Low-value coupons provided to both drivers and passengers may not be an effective way to attract users, as the chauffeur-driven car-on-demand market is different from the normal taxi-hailing market, as it targets high-end rather than price-conscious consumers.
Punctuality and quality service are not something that coupons or subsidies can easily replace in the business.
China Daily Website:
What are the management goals for Yidao in 2015? How to stand out and grab more market share in this highly competitive market？
Zhu:
In last year, Yidao's performance increased greatly, and we expect that the growth will not slow down. In 2015, the business volume will expand at least 10 times year-on-year.
We care more about benefiting customers than market share. Meanwhile, we will not stop sending subsidies to our loyal customers as well as drivers.
China Daily Website:
What are the urgent problems that need to be solved in this market?
Zhu:
The government needs to issue regulatory policies for the industry as the market has matured this year.
For market players, the cars used for rent should come from rental companies rather than private owners. Yidao has set up a joint venture with Haier Financial Services, the financial arm of Chinese consumer electronics maker Haier Group for 8 billion yuan ($1.28 billion) in January, targeted at car rental services and car leasing.
China Daily Website:
Can you elaborate on the business-to-consumer (B2C) model and peer-to-peer (P2P) model that has seen rocketing growth in the car rental market? What are the goals for Yidao in 2015?
Zhu:
For consumers, there are no good or bad business models. If B2C is too expensive they will abandon it, while P2P is cheaper but if it makes users feel insecure, they will also dump it.
Both B2C and P2P models are just methods to knock on the door to enter this sector. The most important thing for companies is to build a user-centered system to run the business.
In 2015, we will enhance our business in the top ten cities among the more than seventy cities that our service currently operates in, and that is what we believe is more important than expanding into more cities.
