The author | huang Lao evil

| laser sources of finance and economics (ID: leishecaijing)

On April 24, Harlow Travel filed a prospectus with the SECURITIES and Exchange Commission to list on nasdaq. Ant Group’s wholly-owned subsidiary Antfin(Hong Kong) Holding Limited is the largest shareholder with a 36.3 percent stake.

The “third in the industry”, which also operates bike-sharing and ride-sharing businesses, once attacked the industry as a dark horse with the support of Alibaba’s capital and resources. Now, it is facing the blockade from Meituan, Didi and Didi in different fields.

How to get support from the capital market and tell a more imaginative story by going public? Hello travel is still searching for answers to that question.

01

Bike-sharing, hitch business is difficult to say

According to the prospectus, The revenue of Haro Travel from 2018 to 2020 is 2.114 billion yuan, 4.823 billion yuan and 6.044 billion yuan respectively, with the growth rate of revenue slowing down gradually.

In terms of revenue, bike-sharing business (including bike-sharing and moped sharing) took the lead, with revenue of 2.114 billion yuan, 4.544 billion yuan and 5.503 billion yuan in 2018-2020 respectively. Tailwind, which started generating revenue in 2019, followed, contributing 200 million yuan and 463 million yuan respectively, while other businesses accounted for single digits.

Meanwhile, the losses continue. The company’s net loss narrowed to 2.207 billion yuan, 1.54 billion yuan and 1.133 billion yuan in the same period. By the end of last year, there were 825 million yuan in cash and 3.409 billion yuan in current assets.

Compared with the same industry players in the bike-sharing and ride-sharing businesses, The report card of Hallo Chuxing is not good enough. In the ride-sharing business, Hallo Chuxing lags far behind didi and Didi, the two industry pioneers.

The former in June last year to restart a lift, then round (including the web about car, lift, taxis, buses, etc.), the peak order of more than 30 million single, two rounds of more than tens of millions of single, and spread the message of pseudo us listings in the near future, “considering the valuation of at least $100 billion”, and “in the third quarter of the listed high certainty”.

The latter submitted its first listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in October last year, and the ride-sharing business is the main revenue source. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the transaction volume was 2.38 billion yuan, surpassing The 2.3 billion yuan of The Company. Last year, the ride-sharing revenue was 705.6 million yuan, far exceeding the 463 million yuan of the Company.

Compared with Meituan Bike and Didi’s Qingju, Halo Chuxing also has few advantages in the two-wheeler sharing business.

In February, Meituan, Didi Chuxing and Hello Chuxing had 120 million monthly jobs, 58 million and 22 million, respectively, according to Data from Dianshubao.

In addition, Meituan, which acquired Mobike, outperformed Halo Chuxing in many indicators, supporting the growth of the bike-sharing business. By the end of 2020, The total revenue of Meituan exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time, the annual transactions of catering takeout exceeded 10 billion yuan for the first time, and the daily order volume reached 27.8 million.

Didi, on the other hand, relies on the synergic advantages of four-wheelers and two-wheelers to realize the leap from low-frequency to high-frequency taxi-hailing and cultivate users’ consumption habits.

However, after catching up with the company, Hallo Chuxing failed to make a breakthrough in all its businesses. It was still surrounded by strong enemies and repeatedly tested the water in the life service industry outside the travel field.

02

Ali is a pioneer in life service industry

The support from Ali is an important reason for the rise of the identity of the newcomer after Hello Travel, and also gives it the label of Ali system, which makes it charge in the life service industry.

When Hallo first launched in Ningbo in November 2016, Ofo and Mobike held 91.3 percent of the market. Han Mei, its co-founder, insists that “no platform can own the market” and will focus on second – and third-tier cities.

Ant Group invested in Harlo in 2017 and helped the latter launch a “national deposit-free” service through Sesame Credit the following year. According to the “China Internet 2018 Annual Report” released by QuestMobile Research Institute, nearly 60% of the traffic of Hallo Chuxing came from alipay mini program, becoming the biggest winner of bike-sharing in the first half.

At the time, Ofo was on its way down and Mobike was acquired by Meituan. Since then, Ant Financial has appeared in several rounds of financing of Harlow Travel, which has also been deeply branded as Ali.

In the bike-sharing industry, which is characterized by heavy assets, low customer orders and slow returns, Haro Chuxing has gradually stepped into the asset-light life service industry, becoming one of the pioneers of Alibaba to counter the expansion of Meituan.

The local living entrance will be launched in April 2020, providing hotel, catering and other restaurant services; In 2021, develop hotel travel business and provide hotel booking function……

In the words of Lee Kai-chu, chief executive of Hallo, the company aims to become a mobility based inclusive lifestyle platform, integrating more local lifestyle services such as hotel booking and in-store group-buying into its platform. Users can already use functions such as hotel booking on the Hello platform.

The problem is that Meituan has built a strong moat in the catering and hotel sectors, and has set a target of 100 million daily orders by 2025. It is also the world’s largest hotel booking platform by night volume. Meituan plans to raise up to $10bn by issuing shares and convertible bonds, according to several foreign media reports. It will have $18bn in net cash.

Bytedance, meanwhile, is coveting the local lifestyle business.

According to LatePost, byteDance’s local lifestyle business was aiming for a full-year GMV of 20 billion yuan by the end of 2021.

Daily active users are 600 million, and the number of installed devices exceeds 1 billion, providing infinite possibilities for Douyin to make use of its traffic advantages and enter new ways of realization beyond advertising and e-commerce.

In China, Tiktok’s local lifestyle business has opened 21 cities, focusing on catering and wine travel, and will expand into other lifestyle services in the future, according to the report.

In the field of local living, Haro Chuxing, backed by Alibaba, is still unable to shake off its identity as a new entrant. Entering the field of local living and intelligent transportation will only increase competitors at a time when the future of two-wheeler sharing and shun Windmill business is uncertain.

Against this backdrop, Harlow will need to hone its hard skills to prove to the outside world that diversified stories can take root and be accepted by capital markets.