Since the beginning of this year, BAT's competition in the field of autonomous driving has become increasingly hot. This is also a local war that has received much attention in the field of transportation after the network car war and the shared bicycle "Rainbow War".

 

Compared with the self-driving driving in the limelight, the other big battlefields locked by the Big Three are invisible: smart parking is much silent, and has not caused the same attention. However, a little research on this industry will reveal that, because parking has the potential to connect the trillion-dollar after-sales service market and improve the fundamental attributes of people's livelihood travel, under the undeniable appearance, the giants compete for his car market. The dark battle has already begun.

 

 

 

Lock the traffic " big Mac " , BAT wants to cut the biggest piece

 

In recent years, China’s car ownership has skyrocketed. According to data from the Ministry of Public Security, as of the end of 2017, China’s motor vehicle ownership reached 310 million, including 217 million vehicles and 342 million motorists.

 

Only a small part of the 217 million vehicles participated in the network car movement by means of taxis, special cars and express trains. But all cars, without exception, must face the problem of parking. According to the conservative estimate of the average daily parking time of each car, 200 million cars will reach an astonishing 400 million times a day. From the frequency of demand, the scale of offline traffic generated under the parking lot far exceeds that of the network, which is a real “flow giant” type scenario, and this is the soil for the smart parking industry.

 

Hundreds of millions of vehicles are parked each day, involving complex activities such as parking space transactions, vehicle management, and parking fee payments. With the surge in parking demand, traditional manual management has been unable to adapt to market changes. Under such a background, a number of enterprises providing intelligent solutions for parking lot scenes emerged, transforming traditional parking lots with big data through advanced technology, improving the utilization of parking space resources, optimizing the efficiency of parking lot operation management, and realizing parking fees. Electronic payment, etc.

 

Why is this industry with huge import value not standing on the “window” like a network car and a shared bicycle? This may be related to the characteristics of the industry's heavy assets: installing a full set of smart parking software and hardware systems for a parking lot often requires the company to invest tens of thousands of dollars, which is not in line with the “light assets, easy to copy” defined by the capital in previous years. Quality project standards. At the same time, it is also doomed that the industry's take-off needs more time to accumulate run-ups, and it is difficult to achieve a "flat take-off" similar to the network car and shared bicycle. But this also means that it may be too late for capital to wait until the industry actually "takes off". Therefore, BAT actually has a low-key sway when it comes to the beginning of smart parking in 2015.

 

Time shift is easy. In the past two years, the increasing cost of traffic has become a consensus. At the same time, the local warfare of multiple offline traffic portals has gradually settled. At this time, when BAT moves its eyes from the network car to the shared bicycle to the parking. When you come up, you have to re-examine its huge value as a traffic portal, and naturally add to it. This potential is even greater than the traffic volume of the car, who would not want to cut the biggest piece?

 

Ali, the most " aggressive " : two-way, multi-point layout

 

In the BAT three homes, Ali shot the most rapid and domineering. From the tactical point of view, Ali is also doing a "multi-point layout" at the same time as "two divisions of soldiers".

 

Let me talk about "two ways." Since 2015, Ali has been in the smart parking field. Since the beginning of the year, Alipay has worked closely with ETCP, the smart parking faucet, to incorporate the electronic payment service for parking fees provided by the latter into Alipay's entire mobile payment ecosystem. This allows ETCP owners who use Alipay to enjoy the automatic deduction of non-stop and Alipay accounts. Service. The concept of “no feeling of payment” in the popular parking lot last year was exactly what the two companies started together.

 

In addition to using smart parking to pay for the ecological drainage of their own mobile payment, Ali also uses the Internet of Vehicles system as a binder to integrate ETCP and other travel service providers to build their own smart travel ecology. In March 2015, Ali and SAIC jointly invested in the establishment of Zebra Information Technology Co., Ltd., and determined to build a car networking platform based on YunOS Auto system. Smart parking functions such as intelligent parking spaces, reserved parking spaces, and electronic payment parking fees have been integrated into the Zebra car networking system.

 

Let's look at the so-called "multiple points." On the one hand, Ali is in good position with the industry leader in the business, lending the latter to quickly promote the business layout in the parking sector; on the other hand, it is “receiving” the second echelon enterprise in the industry, after the opening of 2018, Ali Successive investment in Jiejie parking and stop is simple, each pen is 100 million.

 

Compared with the slow pace of Tencent's slow progress, Ali's radicalism is simply doubtful: Could it be because of the loss of a city in the car about the previous car, so Ali is eager to be in the smart parking?

 

Tencent, the most " stable " : step by step, carefully test

 

Compared with Ali's "aggressiveness", Tencent's movements in the field of smart parking are hesitant. To say that it is steady, not rushing, but how to look like it is followed by Ali, and it is also step by step.

 

Before August of this year, Tencent had only one action in terms of smart parking, and it was“peanuts”: in August 2016, its ally Wanda vast invested 1.55 billion yuan to invest in ETCP and injected Wanda’s parking lot resources. Supporting its gap with competitors and growing into the only unicorn in the smart parking industry. There is a view that Tencent is indirectly "occupying the pit" to avoid Ali's beauty.

 

Recently, Tencent finally gave its first formal investment in the smart parking industry. Working with Ali, Tencent did not choose the industry boss, but voted for a company called Coto.

 

In addition, in the promotion of the momentum, Tencent also followed Ali in this year, through several major public parking lot benchmark projects, the slogan of WeChat "no sense of payment"

 

In general, compared to Ali, Tencent's pace of smart parking is more conservative and slow, and for the time being, it does not seem to be rushing forward.

 

The most " quasi " Baidu: looks for the number one player , insists on a single breakthrough.

 

Unlike the aggressive Ali and the stable Tencent, the style of Baidu is “quasi”.

 

Since 2016, Baidu Maps has cooperated with ETCP to open 600 pilot parking lots for users and provide integrated parking electronic payment services in Beijing. The owner can use the Baidu map or “ETCP Parking” APP to query the parking space information in real time, navigate the yard, and enjoy smart parking services such as in-and-out electronic payment.

 

Recently, Baidu has set up an "AI Travel Alliance" to pull ETCP into the partnership, relying on Baidu map to further open the ecological closed loop of travel + parking. Beyond this one, Baidu has no longer had anything to do with other homes in the parking industry. It can be described as a "one-stop" model.

 

For Baidu, the significance of wooing the smart parking head players is not only to improve the travel layout, but also to help the weak Baidu wallet. What needs to be noted is that under the “All in AI” strategy, Baidu is fully developing the autopilot, which requires a smart parking platform to provide scenarios and data support. Through the cooperation of the vehicle and the field, it is ensured that the vehicle can finally complete the entire parking without the situation of no one. Looking at the cooperation between Baidu and ETCP from this perspective, the imagination is not small.

 

At present, BAT's contest in the field of smart parking is far from being in a state of white-hot, but more in the early stage of layout. Covering the calm appearance may be the most underrated battle in the big travel field.

 

Source from: Network