--- title: "The phantom and dignity of the \"big brother\" of ride-hailing" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/284221591.md" description: "DIDA INC released its worst annual financial report since going public, with annual revenue of 502 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 36.2%. The core ride-hailing order volume dropped from 119 million orders to 76.5 million orders, nearly halving. Amap entered the market with zero commission, further intensifying competition. As of April 24, DIDA INC's stock price fell to HKD 1.29, with a total market value evaporating by over HKD 5 billion, a decline of 78.5% from the issue price. The company is facing dual pressures of shrinking revenue and industry reshuffling" datetime: "2026-04-27T12:55:08.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/284221591.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/284221591.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/284221591.md) --- # The phantom and dignity of the "big brother" of ride-hailing Author | Li Xin Editor | Chen Xiaoran When a company has to lay off nearly half of its employees just to barely maintain profitability, and 90% of its net profit relies on accounting tricks to keep up appearances, what does this financial report really mean? Once a shining star as the "first stock in shared mobility," **DIDA INC (02559.HK)** has delivered the most dismal annual report since its listing: total revenue of 502 million yuan, a year-on-year plummet of 36.2%, hitting a five-year low; the core ride-hailing order volume dropped sharply from 119 million orders to 76.5 million orders, nearly halving. Image source: DIDA INC 2025 Annual Report Even more despairing than the financial data is the dramatic shift in the industry landscape. By the end of 2024, Amap, with 800 million monthly active users, forcefully entered the ride-hailing market, rewriting the rules of the game with a "zero commission" strategy. Once the king of ride-hailing, DIDA INC now faces not only the dual pressure from Hello and Didi but also a fatal blow from Amap. As of the close on April 24, DIDA INC's stock price had fallen to HKD 1.29, with a total market value of only HKD 1.313 billion, down 78.5% from the issuance price of HKD 6, evaporating over HKD 5 billion in market value. Standing at the intersection of continuously shrinking revenue and a completely reshuffled industry landscape, DIDA INC's ride-hailing story seems to be sliding toward an inevitable end. Image source: Wind Turning to the 2025 financial report, DIDA INC's performance has almost completely collapsed. Total revenue for the year was 502 million yuan, a significant decrease of 36.2% compared to 787 million yuan in 2024, even lower than 569 million yuan in 2021, marking a five-year low. As the revenue pillar for DIDA INC, income from mobility-related services recorded only 488 million yuan, a sharp decline of 35.8%, accounting for as much as 97.2% of total revenue. The foundation of ride-hailing is rapidly loosening. In 2025, DIDA's overall transaction volume for ride-hailing was only 4.511 billion yuan, nearly evaporating by 40% compared to 7.364 billion yuan the previous year; the order volume was less than 65% of the previous year's. Meanwhile, the once-promising advertising and other service revenues were not spared, recording only 15 million yuan, a year-on-year drop of 46.67%, which DIDA INC attributed to a significant reduction in advertising budgets from brand clients due to the macroeconomic downturn On the surface, DIDA INC achieved a net profit of 130 million yuan in 2025, a staggering 87.1% drop from 1.004 billion yuan in 2024. However, upon closer examination, it turns out that the fair value change of preferred shares in 2024 contributed as much as 870 million yuan, which has nothing to do with DIDA INC's core business. After the company no longer held preferred shares in 2025, profits were instantly reverted to their original state. Even so, there is still a lot of fluff in the 2025 profits. The financial report shows that DIDA INC's other income for the year was 66.3 million yuan, a significant increase from 4.7 million yuan in 2024, mainly derived from the fair value change of its investment in 1.544 billion shares of Uxin Limited Class A common stock. Excluding this non-recurring gain and loss, the actual profit generated from the company's core business was less than 70 million yuan, indicating a decline in profitability. To maintain the last shred of profit, DIDA INC entered an extreme contraction mode. In 2025, the total number of employees at DIDA INC sharply decreased from 409 to 225, with a layoff rate as high as 45%. Correspondingly, sales and marketing expenses fell by 28.8% year-on-year to 122 million yuan, while R&D expenses were cut by 24.8% year-on-year to 105 million yuan. However, large-scale layoffs, while reducing costs in the long term, brought about huge severance pay expenses in the short term, causing DIDA INC's administrative expenses to soar by 94.6% to 73.7 million yuan. Even more controversial is the internal conflict over profit distribution at DIDA INC. While ordinary employees were massively laid off and the company's performance plummeted, the salaries of directors and key management personnel not only did not decrease but actually increased, rising from 14.956 million yuan in 2024 to 23.368 million yuan in 2025, an increase of 56.2%. Among them, dividends skyrocketed from 758,000 yuan to 15.564 million yuan, an increase of 1953.3%. This stark contrast of "employee layoffs and executive pay raises" has not only sparked widespread skepticism in the capital market but has also severely undermined the morale of DIDA INC's internal employees. The only comforting aspect is that DIDA INC's balance sheet remains healthy. As of the end of 2025, the company's cash and cash equivalents amounted to 967 million yuan, along with various financial assets totaling approximately 1.841 billion yuan. Meanwhile, DIDA INC's debt-to-asset ratio is only 27.88%, with no interest-bearing debt. In this cash-burning industry where billions are often spent, this substantial "winter grain" is sufficient to support DIDA INC's continued operations and exploration for the next 3-5 years without worrying about the risk of a funding chain break. DIDA INC's predicament is essentially a microcosm of the complete reshaping of the ride-sharing industry's competitive landscape. In 2019, DIDA INC held a dominant position in the domestic ride-sharing market with a 66% market share. However, just six years later, in 2025, DIDA INC's market share has significantly dropped to around 30%, being overtaken by Hello with approximately 45% market share. This dramatic reversal of position is driven by three key factors First, since Dida's carpool service resumed online, it has quickly regained a large market share thanks to its vast user base and comprehensive capacity network. Second, Hello has achieved low-cost user acquisition and high retention through the ecological synergy of "shared bicycles + ride-hailing," with 34% of users simultaneously using Hello's shared bicycle and ride-hailing services. The conversion rate of bicycle users to ride-hailing services has reached as high as 63.2%, and its daily peak demand for carpool matching has approached 10 million orders. Additionally, Dida adopted the wrong pricing war strategy in response to competition, reducing the intercity carpool price from Shenzhen to Guangzhou from over a hundred yuan to around forty or fifty yuan. Although this managed to retain some price-sensitive passengers, it severely harmed the supply ecosystem for car owners, leading to a large number of private car owners exiting the platform due to low earnings. However, for Dida, a more decisive blow came from Amap. By the end of 2024, Amap officially launched its carpool service nationwide, which is widely regarded in the industry as a "fatal blow" to Dida. Amap has formed a comprehensive, crushing competitive advantage that Dida finds difficult to match. Amap's core weapon is its industry-low commission system, initially entering the market with a zero-commission strategy, and currently charging only 5%-8%, directly undermining the pricing system that Dida has built over the years. At the same time, Amap holds 810 million monthly active super traffic entrances, with the carpool service embedded in the navigation interface, resulting in nearly zero customer acquisition costs; relying on the most comprehensive and accurate map navigation data in the country, it can intelligently match routes, with matching efficiency and success rates far exceeding peers, and a detour rate of over 30% lower. Meanwhile, the ongoing escalation of industry compliance storms has further intensified the survival pressure on Dida. Transportation departments in Guangdong and other regions have recently intensified inspections of "pseudo-carpooling" and illegal operations, clearly requiring that carpool vehicles must be non-operational and that daily orders must not exceed three. This policy directly impacts a large number of gray capacity relying on intercity long orders on the Dida platform, leading to a significant drop in the fulfillment rate of its intercity orders. To make matters worse, Dida's brand reputation has also been continuously deteriorating. As of March 2026, the cumulative number of complaints about Dida on the Black Cat Complaint platform has exceeded 26,000, with complaints about "random deductions," "drivers privately increasing prices," and "customer service inaction" concentrated in outbreaks. In a low-frequency, high-trust-dependent business like carpooling, the collapse of reputation is often more devastating than the decline in financial data. The once differentiated advantage is gradually disintegrating amidst price wars, compliance storms, and user dissatisfaction. Although its main business is under comprehensive pressure and its stock price continues to be sluggish, Dida is not without assets; it still holds two seemingly solid core cards. The first card is the extremely abundant cash reserves mentioned earlier. The second card is its large user asset accumulated over the years. As of the end of 2025, the Dida app has accumulated over 415 million registered users and approximately 21 million certified private car owners. This vast user asset not only serves as the supply and demand side for the carpool business but also has enormous potential to extend into various fields such as the automotive aftermarket, used car trading, and automotive finance In order to break free from its single reliance on the ride-sharing business, DIDA INC began a difficult strategic transformation attempt in 2025. On the transportation front, DIDA INC launched an aggregated ride-hailing service, integrating third-party compliant ride-hailing capacities such as CaoCao and ShouQi, in an attempt to cover users' immediate travel needs. Currently, the aggregated ride-hailing service has been launched in nearly 70 cities, capturing a significant portion of the unmet ride-sharing demand. In the vehicle ecosystem, DIDA INC has entered the used car transaction lead service, launching the "Good Car Selection" platform, aiming to provide car owners with trade-in inquiries and sales lead monetization services. Additionally, DIDA INC has also launched the "Ride-Sharing Rankings" and "Little Red Flower" mechanisms, attempting to reshape the cold transaction platform into a warm "semi-acquaintance travel community." The first ranking covers 87 cities, with 176,000 users listed, which has somewhat enhanced user stickiness. However, these new businesses have yet to disclose revenue data separately in financial reports, indicating that they are still in the early stages of incubation and have minimal contribution to DIDA INC's performance. In the aggregated ride-hailing sector, DIDA INC entered the market relatively late, lacking its own traffic moat, making it easy to become a traffic conduit for leading platforms like Didi and Gaode; in the used car sector, old players like Guazi and Dongchedi have already built strong industry barriers, and DIDA INC, relying solely on a primary entry point within the app, lacks offline inspection and delivery capabilities, raising concerns about commercial conversion efficiency. For investors, the current value of DIDA INC is at a historical low. DIDA INC's stock price has fallen from the issuance price of HKD 6 to HKD 1.29, with the latest total market value only at HKD 1.313 billion. This price fully reflects the market's pessimistic expectations regarding its single business structure, stagnation in growth, and intensified industry competition. Of course, investment risks remain significant. If Gaode and Hello's offensive continues unabated, DIDA INC's ride-sharing market share may further shrink; if new businesses cannot scale and achieve profitability, DIDA INC will fall into a vicious cycle of "continuous slimming for profit." However, from another perspective, this internet platform, which has a net profit exceeding 100 million annually, holds 1.8 billion in cash, and boasts a user base of over 400 million, has gradually revealed its investment safety margin as its market value shrinks to just over 1 billion HKD. The ultimate outcome of the transportation industry will not be continuous bottomless subsidies. As industry competition recedes and the market returns to rationality, DIDA INC's light asset model, which possesses endogenous cash-generating capabilities, may usher in a turning point. The time window still exists, but the time left for DIDA INC is running out. The final suspense is only one: between breaking through the transformation and cash consumption, who can reach the finish line first? ### Related Stocks - [02559.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/02559.HK.md) - [UXIN.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/UXIN.US.md) - [02643.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/02643.HK.md) ## Related News & Research - [Dida files HKEX next-day disclosure return, issues 7,941,979 new shares under RSU scheme](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290424575.md) - [Dida files list of directors with Hong Kong Stock Exchange](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290210677.md) - [Dida names Li Jinlong chair of newly formed ESG committee](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290216304.md) - [German business confidence edges higher on hopes Iran tensions ease](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290666848.md) - [Donald Trump Jr. Says Oil Futures Under $70 Thanks To His Dad's Iran Deal: 'Lower Gas Prices Coming For Americans'](https://longbridge.com/en/news/290799311.md)