Li Gen of Sina Technology
The competition for bike sharing has spread. After the competition of various indicators such as capital, user experience and operating speed, the brand level war started after the year, and the most obvious is to compete for "No.1 in the world".
Who is the real number one in the world? The red and yellow sides of bike sharing have pulled down the third party data institutions. ofo and Mobil successively cited their own approved data reports, claiming that they have taken the lead in this competition.
However, the worries of third-party data reports have also been exposed to the public again.
Embarrassment of data reporting
After the Spring Festival, ofo first cited the report released by the third-party data research organization Bida Consulting, saying that the current market share is 51.2%, ranking first in the industry, and the number of cities covered is three times that of the second place, and the number of single cars launched is 1.6 times that of the second place.
Ofo cites the conclusions from the report of a third-party data agency In the 2016 Research Report on China's Shared Bicycle Market released by Bida Consulting, the conclusion that ofo has the first market share is drawn based on the dimensions of urban coverage and number of bicycles.
However, the main competitor of ofo, Mobai, immediately responded through another data report. Mobil quoted the data from the third-party data agency Trustdata, saying that in the data analysis of bike sharing, Mobil has a clear leading edge, and in the dimensions of MAU (monthly active), number of recharges, etc., Mobil has even reached several times the leading edge over ofo.
Mobai cites the conclusions of the report of a third-party data agency Compared with the vertical industry research report of BDA Consulting, the 2016 China Mobile Internet Development Analysis Report released by Trustdata is a data analysis focusing on the whole mobile Internet industry in 2016.
It is worth noting that the research dimensions of the two reports are not the same, but the final conclusions point directly to the competitive advantage and brand first, especially the gap of several times. For the unknown melon eaters, the final concern is only the conclusions, rather than the dimensions and methods.
But who is truly the first in the market? For the two service providers, are there any other considerations besides the significance of public relations?
Investor confidence and brand card position
In fact, according to the data report, first, it has limited significance for C-end users. Li Qian, vice president of Qingshan Capital, believes that citing third-party data reports to "circumstantial evidence" is mainly due to the consideration of brand endorsement, but it is more valuable for B-end service providers, and this value can more intuitively affect partners and potential partners.
"From the perspective of C-end service providers, users' core concern is product use and experience, which has limited significance for whether you are the first in the market," said Li Qian.
However, the industry personage who is famous for brand building also explained the logic of bike sharing. She told Sina Technology: "The endorsement of a third-party data agency can increase the confidence of the market, users, investors, etc. For example, the data advertising of 'Fragrant Fragrance can add up to encircle the earth...' can improve the confidence of the market and investors."
On the other hand, in addition to giving the investor a boost, Li Qian believes that the choice of startups is mainly based on the "brand card". She further explained: "It's very straightforward. I say I am the first in the market. If I say too much, people really think I am the first."
Another used car industry practitioner confirmed Li Qian's statement. At present, second-hand cars are in the warring states period. After several rounds of huge financing, the main players are eager to work hard, and market publicity has undoubtedly become the first battlefield that affects the public.
"Publicity involving sales volume and market share can't stand scrutiny in fact, unless everyone has the same strict disclosure method as listed companies, but as practitioners, they must do so, because in the field of second-hand cars online, fame and user impression directly come from this." The above said.
The practitioner further told Sina Technology that the advantage of citing third-party data institutions is "peace of mind", and from the perspective of users, "the onlooker is clear". However, he also said that although it is not easy to blatantly falsify data, he can cooperate with some third-party data institutions in the market if he needs to, From some dimensions, we can draw our own favorable conclusions - "because there is no absolutely authoritative data organization in the Chinese market, nor is there a core standard dimension, which means a little girl dressed by others."
Tao Jingqi, senior director of the market intelligence department of TalkingData, more frankly revealed the hidden rules of the industry. She said, "Why are they different? I personally think they have spent some time on data interpretation. There must be differences between our data dimensions and exports. In fact, the enterprise has some ideas of its own. It still hopes to show a better direction. It must have found a more favorable perspective to expose this data. "
How to "independent and objective third party"?
However, for many market judges, including the media, what elements should be included in a third-party data report for reference? Or how to determine the source? Participants from third-party data institutions also expressed their views to Sina Technology.
The first is the sample. From a statistical point of view, the closer the sample data is to all the data, the more it can tend to reflect the internal situation.
The third party data agency Aurora explained to Sina Technology that in general, there are several ways to report the third party data in the industry: first, the survey data, generally with a small sample size, will be affected by the survey methods; Second, the authenticity of data disclosed by enterprises in public or private, including data disclosed by various channels, cannot be verified; The third is operator data. With the increasingly strict data management of operators and the popularization of data encryption technology, the quality of this piece of data is not reliable; The fourth is the data of its own monitoring platform.
For the above four data sources, Aurora believes that the fourth is more feasible and available. It also said that its own data report was released mainly through the fourth type, which said that as a push service provider, it could legally obtain mobile terminal data by signing an agreement. Aurora also further disclosed that it currently has 600 million monthly live data sources covering 5 billion and mobile terminals.
Comparing the number of data sources is also a common way for third-party data institutions to self certify their qualifications. Another third-party data agency, TalkingData, expressed similar views to Aurora in terms of data sources to Sina Technology, and disclosed its own data sources: first, it made data cooperation services with 100000 applications and 80000 games, and collected some data sources from these partners. In addition, some data will also be collected by offline supermarket distribution points.
In fact, in October last year, two major navigation map manufacturers in China also had a "who is the first" war of words. At that time, both sides published data reports and quarreled with each other. Later, Gao De kept shouting that he hoped to compete by "embedding third-party code".
Although Gaud Baidu However, Tao Jingqi, senior director of TalkingData's market intelligence department, believes that "embedding third-party code" is an effective way to solve the problem of "who is the best in the world".
She told Sina Science and Technology: "Every data agency has its own so-called full flow monitoring data, but if this data is only the data published by the manufacturer itself, the objectivity and impartiality will be compromised. However, if you conduct your full flow monitoring through the SDK code distribution method of a third-party data agency, it must be more objective and impartial."
In addition, there are third-party data analysts who believe that download rankings, community behavior analysis reports, and national brand reports in some closed ecosystems are more valuable data reports.
"For example, the download and ranking of apps in iOS can be used as a reference dimension. Even if there is a situation of list swiping, it is well known that the risk and cost of list swiping in AppStore are very high. Also micro-blog There is no more intuitive public opinion data than those of these communities for the report of user behavior such as WeChat, such as the brand and frequency of the change. Finally, there are reports similar to those issued by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which can almost be used as authoritative and credible reports for reference. " Said the analyst.
At the end, he also stressed that because of the problem of the entire credit mechanism, China still has many challenges in third-party data reporting. "However, when we choose to do the right thing, we will benefit more in the long run."
