Produced | Sohu Technology

Author | Yin Lina

Edit | Yang Jin

The listing rumors have been brewing for more than three years. In the morning of June 11, Didi finally submitted a prospectus and launched an IPO in the United States.

According to the prospectus, Didi’s stock code is “DIDI”, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and China Renaissance Capital acting as underwriters.

Since its establishment, Didi has gone through 22 rounds of financing with a total financing amount of nearly 80 billion yuan, making it a well-deserved financing expert.

However, from the perspective of performance, Didi’s online car-hailing seems to be huge, but only has a meager profit of 3.1%; international business is still losing money, and there are large variables due to the epidemic; new businesses such as freight and community group buying have just started. It is still a “cash-burning” machine, and profit is far from expected.

Performance dismantling: loss is still the main theme

Let’s look at the performance first. From 2018 to 2020, Didi’s revenue was 135.3 billion yuan, 154.8 billion yuan and 141.7 billion yuan, respectively. In the first quarter of this year, Didi’s revenue was 42.2 billion yuan.

From the above figures, it can be seen that in the past three years, Didi’s revenue growth has not been significant. Affected by factors such as the new crown epidemic in 2020, overall revenue has also declined slightly. However, the impact of the epidemic was eased in the second half of last year. The prospectus shows that in the second half of last year, the total transaction volume of Didi’s travel business in China was 121.6 billion yuan, an increase of 80.3% over the first half of the year and an increase of 12.2% over the second half of 2019.

In addition, losses are still the main theme of Didi. In the past three years, Didi’s net losses were 15 billion yuan, 9.7 billion yuan, and 10.6 billion yuan, respectively. The adjusted non-GAAP profits were 8.6 billion yuan, 2.8 billion yuan and 8.4 billion yuan. In the first quarter of this year, due to the unrecognized income of 9.1 billion yuan and an investment income of 3.3 billion yuan from the spin-off of Orange Heart Optimal, the investment income reached 12.36 billion yuan, Didi turned losses, net profit reached 5.5 billion yuan, and an adjusted loss of 5.5 billion yuan. yuan.

In terms of business, the main sources of Didi’s revenue are divided into three categories, namely, China’s travel business (China’s online car-hailing, taxi, agent driving and ride-hailing businesses), international business (international travel and food delivery, etc.) and Other businesses (shared bicycles and motorcycles, car service, freight, autonomous driving, financial services, etc.).

In 2020, these three types of income will be 133.6 billion yuan, 2.3 billion yuan and 5.8 billion yuan respectively. Among them, China’s travel business is the most important source of income, and the proportion of China’s travel business to total revenue is as high as 94.3%.

Among various expenditures, operating costs account for a large proportion, mainly commissions and subsidies paid to drivers. In the past three years, Didi’s gross profit margin was 5.5%, 9.8% and 11.2%, showing an upward trend year by year.

Among various expenses, marketing and marketing expenses accounted for the highest proportion. Last year, the total amount reached 11.14 billion yuan, accounting for 7.86% of total revenue. Followed by general and administrative expenses, about 7.55 billion yuan, accounting for 5.33% of total revenue.

Although as of the end of last year, Didi had 15,914 full-time employees worldwide, including 7,110 R&D employees, which accounted for 44.7% of R&D employees, the proportion of Didi’s technology and R&D related expenses was not the highest: last year it was 63.2 100 million yuan, accounting for 4.46% of total revenue. Finally, operating and support expenses are 4.70 billion yuan, accounting for about 3.32% of revenue.

In terms of operations, in the 12 months ending March 31, 2021, Didi has been operating in more than 4,000 cities and towns in 15 countries around the world. The total transaction volume of the whole platform is 341 billion yuan, of which Didi’s core platform GTV (referring to GTV in China’s travel and international markets) reached 244.2 billion yuan. With the exception of community group buying, the average daily order volume of all businesses reached 41 million, the annual active users reached 493 million, and the annual active drivers were 15 million.

However, the current progress is still far from the “0188” plan released by Didi in March last year. The “0188” plan shows that Didi will serve more than 100 million orders per day during the three years from 2020 to 2022, with a penetration rate of more than 8% for all domestic trips, and a global service user MAU of more than 800 million.

What is more worrying is that in Didi’s “main battlefield” Chinese market, the number of orders has shown a downward trend year by year, and the customer unit price has not increased significantly.

The number of Didi orders in the Chinese market dropped from 8.79 billion orders in 2018 to 8.67 billion orders in 2019 to 7.75 billion orders. However, this trend also has business adjustments and environmental factors. In 2019, Didi discontinued its ride-hailing business. Under the new crown epidemic in 2020, people will go out less frequently, and Didi has also suspended cross-city orders and ride-sharing services. In terms of customer unit prices, they were 23.3 yuan, 23.3 yuan and 24.4 yuan respectively in three years.

However, Didi has achieved profitability in the Chinese travel market: adjusted pre-interest and tax profit of 3.84 billion yuan in 2019, 3.96 billion yuan in 2020, and 3.62 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2021.

The rake puzzle: online car-hailing profit margin is only 3.1%

After the ride-hailing incident occurred in 2018, the outside world had a lot of discussions about Didi. In addition to inadequate security measures, the question of Didi’s profitability was the most acute.

Just when everyone thought that Didi was earning a lot of money, some media broke the news that Didi had “a total loss of 10.9 billion yuan in 2018 and a driver’s subsidy of 11.3 billion yuan”, and “the total loss in the six years of its business has exceeded. 40 billion yuan”.

Entering 2020, discussions on Didi’s high commission rate remain high, with some drivers claiming that the commission rate for some orders has even reached more than 30%. In response, Didi issued a statement stating that the proportion of such “extreme rake orders” was 2.7% last year, and it has now been reduced to 0.03%. The next step will allow this number to continue to decline until it is completely eliminated. Today, Didi has launched a transparent billing function, and drivers can view the flow of funds for orders in the past 7 days.

As a matter of fact, the situation regarding the commission of the online car-hailing business can be seen in the prospectus.

Look at the whole first. The prospectus shows that from 2018 to the first quarter of 2021, drivers from around the world earned more than 600 billion yuan in revenue on the Didi platform. In the Chinese market, in the online car-hailing business in 2020, the total revenue and incentives received by drivers will reach 117.4 billion yuan.

In the prospectus, Didi detailed the financial status of Didi in China’s travel market in 2020.

Last year, Didi’s total transaction volume in the domestic travel market was 189 billion yuan, of which the transaction volume from online car-hailing business (excluding taxis, private cars, and ride-hailing, etc.) was 148.6 billion yuan.

Excluding expenses spent on consumer subsidies and road tolls, Didi’s total revenue was 133.6 billion yuan. Among them, 110.5 billion yuan was used as driver income, accounting for 82% of revenue; 6.9 billion yuan was used as driver incentives, accounting for 5.2% of revenue, and the two together accounted for 87.9% of Didi’s total revenue, accounting for approximately total online car-hailing 79% of the transaction volume is consistent with Didi’s previously announced commission.

Earlier, on May 7, Didi car-hailing issued a statement on the “rake”, stating that in 2020, Didi car-hailing drivers accounted for 79.1% of the total payable by passengers. Of the remaining 20.9%, 10.9% are passenger subsidies, 6.9% are corporate operating costs (technology research and development, servers, security, customer service, manpower, offline operations, etc.), taxation and payment handling fees, etc., and 3.1% are online appointments Net profit of car business.

Overall, excluding driver income and driver subsidies, Didi will receive 16.2 billion yuan in its online car-hailing business. Excluding 12.2 billion yuan in operating expenses, Didi’s online car-hailing business before interest, tax and amortization The profit reached 4 billion yuan, and the profit rate was about 3.1%.

Didi doesn’t want to be just online ride-hailing

The slow revenue growth and the meager profit of domestic online car-hailing have forced Didi to find the next growth point.

In 2018, Didi began its international expansion, trying to replicate its experience in the Chinese market to the world, and was the first to enter Brazil, Mexico, Australia, and Japan. Prospectus data shows that Didi currently has operations in 15 countries around the world.

However, in the case of China’s local online car-hailing is only a meager profit, it is conceivable that it is difficult for the international business to make a profit, especially in the context of the new crown epidemic in foreign countries where there are still large variables. From the beginning of 2018 to the first quarter of this year, Didi’s international business losses have accumulated more than 10 billion yuan.

But one problem is that a series of new businesses such as shared bicycles and motorcycles, car services, freight transport, autonomous driving, and financial services only brought Didi 5.76 billion yuan in revenue last year, but at the same time it brought more than 8.8 billion yuan. The loss is more than twice the profit of online car-hailing.

This year, the loss has further expanded. In the first quarter of this year, the loss of new business in a single quarter reached 8.08 billion yuan. From 2018 to the first quarter of 2021, Didi’s losses in new businesses have totaled more than 26 billion yuan.

It is worth noting that these new businesses have completed independent spin-offs and financing in the first half of this year.

Last year, Qingju launched a round of financing. SoftBank and some other investors invested US$134 million and Didi invested US$750 million. At the beginning of this year, Qingju launched a Series B financing again, in which external investors invested US$166 million and Didi subscribed. A share of US$300 million in equity financing and a US$100 million in convertible notes. Qingju is currently valued at US$1.9 billion, and Didi holds 88.3%;

In the first quarter of this year, Didi Freight received US$1.5 billion in Series A financing, the latest valuation is US$2.8 billion, and Didi currently holds 57.6% of the shares;

Didi’s autonomous driving company has completed a US$1.5 billion Series A financing, with a valuation of US$3.4 billion, and Didi’s shareholding ratio is 70.4%.

Orange Heart Optimal conducted A1 and A2 rounds of financing in March this year. Among them, the A1 round of SoftBank Vision Fund injected US$900 million and the rest of the external investors injected US$100 million; the A2 round was funded by the management of about US$200 million, and the financing was completed. After Didi’s equity fell to 32.8%, it was no longer consolidated. However, in the A2 round, Orange Heart Pride issued USD 3 billion of convertible bonds to Didi. Didi has the right to convert the bonds into stocks before the expiration date of the convertible bonds and become the controlling shareholder of Orange Heart Pride again.

Although these new businesses are at a loss, it is not difficult to see how much Didi attaches importance to internationalization and new businesses from the purpose of fundraising: 30% of the funds raised are used to expand business in international markets outside of China; 30% The raised funds are used to improve technical capabilities including shared travel, electric vehicles and autonomous driving; the remaining about 20% will be used to launch new products and expand existing product categories to continuously improve user experience.

Today, Didi’s listing process has begun, but it will take more time to wait for these new businesses to grow into the next “ace” besides online car-hailing.

(Original article by Sohu Technology, please indicate the source for reprinting)

Edit｜ Zhang Yating

On April 28, the Securities Regulatory Commission’s website pre-disclosed China Telecom’s prospectus. Yesterday, China Telecom’s application for the issuance and listing of A shares was accepted by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

According to the prospectus, subject to regulatory requirements such as the minimum issuance ratio in the place of listing, China Telecom intends to publicly issue no more than 12,093,342,392 A shares (that is, no more than 13% of the total issued share capital after the issuance, and before the over-allotment option is exercised) ). At the same time, China Telecom can authorize the lead underwriter to exercise the over-allotment option under the premise of complying with laws, regulations and regulatory requirements, and the over-sale of A shares does not exceed 15% of the number of A shares issued (before the over-allotment option is exercised). .

China Telecom intends to take advantage of the opportunity of issuing A shares to introduce strategic investors with complementary advantages and synergy effects with the company, further improve corporate governance and market-oriented operation mechanisms, expand the ecological territory, and enhance the company’s products and services, technological innovation and other fields. Comprehensive Competitiveness.

In terms of operating performance, China Telecom has seen steady growth in operating revenue in recent years, leading the industry in service revenue growth for many years, and increasing net profit year by year. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, operating income was 374.929 billion yuan, 372.20 billion yuan and 389.939 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was 20.432 billion yuan, 20.521 billion yuan and 20.855 billion yuan, respectively.

In terms of business development, China Telecom ranks first in the industry in a number of indicators. As of December 31, 2020, the scale of mobile users has reached 351 million, and the number of net additions has led the industry for three consecutive years. Among them, 5G package users have reached 86.5 million, with a penetration rate of 24.6%, ranking first in the industry. In 2020, the industry’s digital revenue reached 84 billion yuan, ranking first in the industry; Tianyi Cloud ranked first in the global operator public cloud IaaS, and its revenue scale ranked first among domestic operators; IDC resources have the largest number and widest distribution , Is the largest IDC service provider in China.

In terms of reform and innovation, China Telecom has made remarkable achievements in technological innovation, promoting independent control of core technologies in the fields of cloud-network integration, 5G, security, Internet of Things, and smart homes. Actively undertake major national scientific and technological research tasks. Since 2018, it has undertaken a total of 26 national key scientific and technological research and development projects. In 2020, 40 international standardization projects will be completed. As of the end of 2020, the number of valid patents has exceeded 3,000. China Telecom implements the strategy of strengthening the company with talents and builds a talent team with differentiated competitive advantages. Implementing a market-based incentive mechanism, according to the latest value-added rights plan in 2021, and in accordance with the principles of “divided by contribution”, “divided by potential”, and “acquired by performance”, 8,239 core staff members were granted approximately 2.412 billion shares of stock appreciation rights. Vigorously promote the market-based selection and employment mechanism, and continue to increase the introduction of 5G, cloud-network integration, and ABCI related talents.

In terms of the use of raised funds, the net funds raised this time are planned to be used for 5G industrial Internet construction projects, cloud-network integration new information infrastructure projects, and technological innovation research and development projects. The total investment scale in the next three years will be 102.1 billion yuan, of which, it is planned to use The amount of raised investment funds will reach 54.4 billion yuan.

Through the in-depth implementation of the “cloud-to-digital conversion” strategy and this A-share listing, China Telecom will comprehensively enhance the company’s competitiveness, innovation, control, influence, and anti-risk capabilities, and strive to build a service-oriented, technology-based, and secure enterprise . Looking forward to the next three years: China Telecom’s technological innovation capabilities and talent innovation vitality have been significantly enhanced, the industry’s digital expansion capabilities have been significantly improved, the business structure has been further optimized, and the proportion of industry digital revenue has increased year by year. The layout of the strategic emerging industry segments has been further strengthened, the development model and growth mode have been effectively transformed, the operating income has grown steadily, the income and profit margin has been steadily improved, and the value of the company has been newly improved.

Financial information is one of the indispensable factors in investment and business decisions. In particular, on the stock market, information is a sensitive factor that directly affects investment decisions.

Accordingly, the cooperation between SSC and VACPA is practical to improve the quality of financial information on the stock market, and the effectiveness of securities market management and supervision by regulators, to promote the profession. Accounting and auditing industry in Vietnam develops.

SSC and VACPA will cooperate in 4 contents including information exchange, quality control, training activities, seminars and suggestions to develop legal documents / professional documents compiled by the two sides.

In particular, with quality control activities, the Committee provides information on quality control results and errors in audit records with VACPA for the two sides to jointly organize dialogues / exchanges. /training.

When requested by the Committee, VACPA assigns staff to inspect and evaluate audited financial statements as well as audit records of auditors in the regular oversight activities of the Committee.

Mr. Tran Van Dung, Chairman of the State Securities Commission, said that, besides stocks, will cooperate with VACPA in both derivative market, new products and corporate bonds in the near future. . The cooperation will help ensure the quality of commodity control work in the financial markets.

Sharing the same point of view, Mr. Pham Sy Danh, Chairman of VACPA shared, with the sustainable development of the stock market, the role of information transparency, as well as the activities of auditors and independent auditors. is very important.

“Three important factors that investors need when entering the market are the public company’s transparency, the Securities Commission’s control and the transparency of the independent auditor,” said Danh.