Affected By Pandemic, Ride-Hailing Orders in China Fell 29% YoY in March

China’s Ministry of Transport on Tuesday released operation data for the domestic online ride-hailing industry in March. The state online ride-hailing supervision information exchange platform witnessed 539 million orders in March, down over 29% year-on-year and 2.2% quarter-on-quarter.

In March last year, the state supervision platform recorded 760 million orders. Affected by the persistent COVID-19 pandemic, online ride-hailing services in some locked-down areas of China have been suspended.

In March, there were 18 online ride-hailing platforms with orders exceeding 300,000. Among these platforms, Saicmobility, operated by SAIC Motor, maintained the highest compliance rate, while HXZ Chuxing, an independent ride-hailing brand launched by Didi, had the lowest compliance rate.

The top three operators that increased their compliance rate in March were Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur, Landao Chuxing and Meituan Dache. The last three operators were Caocao Mobility, Ruqi Mobility and Jishi Yongche.

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Among the major cities, Hangzhou in Zhejiang province kept the highest order compliance rate while Shijiazhuang in Hebei province had the lowest compliance rate.

As of March 31 this year, a total of 267 online ride-hailing platform companies across the country have obtained business licenses, an increase of four from March, 2021. Meanwhile, 4.073 million online ride-hailing driver’s licenses and 1.634 million vehicle licenses were issued across China, up 0.5% and 0.2% respectively from March of last year.