Recently, Didi, a travel giant, quietly launched a self-developed map business-"Didi Map" in the 6.0 version of Didi Travel APP6.0.
In the navigation bar of Didi Chuxing APP, the "Navigation" function has been added. In the map selected by the user, Didi map has replaced the original location of Gaode map and appeared in the Didi taxi interface.
At present, this function is only available in more than ten cities, such as Shenzhen and Chengdu, and it has not yet spread to the whole country.
Before Didi launched its own map business, Didi chose to cooperate with other map manufacturers to explore the field of travel.
Initially, Didi taxi chose to access Baidu map; By 20 14, it was reported that Didi was connected to Tencent map; In 20 16, the cooperation map of Didi Chuxing was changed again, and cooperation was reached with Gaode, which provided map navigation service for Didi Chuxing products.
It is worth mentioning that Didi is uncharacteristically not cooperating with map manufacturers, and choosing self-developed map business is not a whim, but the result of years of hard work.
As early as 20 16, Didi established a map company-Didi Map (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Didi Map Technology") and recruited many map talents.
In the second year, Didi also applied for the first-class surveying and mapping qualification of navigation electronic map issued by the National Surveying and Mapping Geographic Information Bureau, which is also commonly known as the "Internet map service" qualification.
This qualification is also known as the golden key of map merchants. Mastering this qualification means that Didi Technology can collect and make navigation map information.
This undoubtedly provides an entry threshold for Didi and creates the most basic conditions for the field of layout maps.
Travel and navigation have always been a relatively complete travel industry chain, especially at present, more and more people are used to using navigation when traveling.
If Didi can take the lead in realizing the mutual blessing of travel and navigation, it may also create a relatively complete travel closed loop for itself, which is absolutely beneficial to Didi's performance in the travel market, especially in autonomous driving.
For travel players, if they want to make a difference in autonomous driving, maps are one of the key conditions. Only by accurately collecting all kinds of road information can autonomous driving have the most fundamental data foundation.
Not only autonomous driving, but also the most common trips need the support of detailed road information data.
Of course, Didi can also buy data information from other map manufacturers, but the later update and maintenance is also a big expense.
So it is not difficult to imagine why Didi will gradually be laid out in the map field.
After all, when you need it and have the ability to do it, it is better to do it yourself than to pay others.
However, in the map market, people also come and go.
For example, Baidu, Gaode, Tencent and other powerful players in the map field have completed a large amount of data accumulation in the early stage by virtue of their first-Mover advantage, which has formed certain advantages in the map market.
There is also a new player, the technology giant Huawei, who has also extended his hand to the map market, and posted navigation maps supporting more than 100 overseas countries and more than 1300 cities on his own application.
In short, Didi is not the earliest one in the layout map, and it will definitely not be the last one, as long as there are dividends in the travel field.
And Didi does it himself. Whether you can eat enough depends on Didi's next performance.
Author: Feng Qing