Ruqi Travel, which went public with the aura of being the first Roobotaxi stock, has finally come to a shining moment.

On July 29th, Ruqi Travel's stock price soared by 33.92%, reaching HKD 21.4/share, with a turnover of HKD 5.4523 million and a total market value of approximately HKD 4.368 billion. Such share price performance shows that investors still hold great recognition for the enormous potential of Robotaxi.

According to Frost & Sullivan, as a pioneer in promoting the commercialization of Robotaxi, Ruqi Travel had launched the world's first open Robotaxi operating technology platform as early as April 2022, demonstrating strong Robotaxi commercialization potential.

It is reported that Ruqi Travel plans to use the money raised through IPO mainly for the research and development of autonomous driving and Robotaxi operation services, upgrading travel service products and improving operational efficiency, expanding the user base and improving market penetration, as well as enhancing brand awareness. Among them, Robotaxi will be an important direction for the future development of Ruqi Travel.

Robotaxi has taken the fast lane and is leading the charge to seize commercialization high ground.

From frequent listings of Luobo Kuaipao on hot searches, to Tesla and Baidu's share prices always fluctuating with Robotaxi's movements, and then to Ruqi Travel's speedy Hong Kong Stock Exchange hearing, all indicate that the public and the capital markets are paying great attention to the Robotaxi market.

According to the information from Frost & Sullivan, as judged by transaction volume, the total global market size of Robotaxi is expected to reach RMB 834.9 billion by 2030.

According to the understanding of the Wall Street News APP, seizing the travel market advantage with lower travel costs is the underlying driving force for countries to develop Robotaxi. Since the cost of the whole vehicle and driver wages are two major items that can be reduced, Robotaxi can actually reduce the operating costs of online car-hailing/taxi, which is also a key factor for the industry to further develop and achieve commercialization.

It has been calculated and compared that Robotaxi's operating cost advantage is prominent. After 2026, Robotaxi is expected to achieve commercialization, and its cost per kilometer is expected to continue to decrease, reaching RMB 1/km by 2030. Compared with the RMB 2.4/km for taxis with drivers during the same period, this represents a savings of approximately 58%.

At present, all countries around the world are accelerating their investment in Robotaxi and moving towards commercialization. According to Frost & Sullivan, the total global market size of Robotaxi is expected to reach RMB 834.9 billion by 2030.

As an emerging blue ocean market with promising prospects, Ruqi Travel, as a pioneer, is aggressively seizing the commercialization high ground.

From entering the autonomous driving market through cooperation with partners in 2021, to becoming the first travel service platform in China to demonstrate and operate a fleet of self-developed Robotaxis in 2023. As of December 31, 2023, Ruqi Travel's Robotaxi service had operated for a total of 20,080 hours, covering 545 sites and completing approximately 0.451 million kilometers of safe operational test mileage. As of the same date, a total of 281 vehicles had been connected to its Robotaxi operating technology platform. With this progress, Ruqi Travel's road to commercialization is unfolding, and the coastline of the New Continent is already visible.

Furthermore, standing at the current time node and looking back at the historical process of China-US autonomous driving, it is not difficult to see a common denominator: all of them were initially led by leading technology companies, and then transmitted to traditional car companies and online car-hailing platforms, attempting to catch up with full force.

If Ruqi Travel can bet heavily on Robotaxi and become a pioneer in the field, where is its moat?

Just as China Fortune Securities pointed out, the "golden triangle" cooperation model of "technology + vehicle + platform" can promote the development of Robotaxi technology through autonomous driving technology companies, lead the development of autonomous driving vehicle platforms through manufacturers, and enable professional travel service platforms to manage Robotaxi operation services. This also formed a consensus during the commercialization development process in various countries.

This is precisely the underlying logic behind Ruqi Travel's push for commercialization. That is, to solidify the three major business dimensions of "technology + vehicle + platform" and increase its stake in the commercialization evolution.

Wall Street News APP believes that with the backing of Pony.ai and Guangzhou Automobile Group, Ruqi Travel is well-stocked in terms of automobiles, qualification licenses, and autonomous driving technology. On the one hand, Pony.ai, which holds qualification licenses and autonomous driving solutions, has provided Ruqi Travel with a prestigious admission ticket for landing Robotaxi. On the other hand, with the support of Guangzhou Automobile Group, Ruqi Travel has a natural advantage in automobiles.

At the beginning of June this year, Guangzhou Automobile Group became one of the first car companies in China to be approved for L3 autonomous driving road testing pilots through intelligent connected vehicles. As the intelligent connected vehicle user subject of this pilot, Ruqi Travel will launch vehicles with L3 level autonomous driving capabilities and provide travel services to users.

According to Frost Sullivan analysis, Robotaxi is expected to achieve large-scale commercialization in 2026. The 'technology + vehicle + platform' model of Ruqi Travel is accelerating the commercial landing of its Robotaxi.

Focus on 'small and beautiful' in the Greater Bay Area.

Since its establishment in 2019, Ruqi Travel has grown into one of the most influential players in the Greater Bay Area. According to Frost Sullivan statistics, in 2023, Ruqi Travel's travel services had a transaction volume of 2.741 billion yuan, accounting for 5.6% of the market share in the Greater Bay Area, ranking second. The user penetration rate in the Greater Bay Area exceeded 45%, ranking second.

The rapid expansion of the business is reflected in the optimistic growth of the company's revenue. According to the prospectus, from 2021 to 2023, Ruqi Travel's revenue was 1.014 billion yuan, 1.368 billion yuan, and 2.161 billion yuan, respectively, with a compound annual growth rate of 46%; among them, the travel service revenue was 1.013 billion yuan, 1.25 billion yuan, and 1.814 billion yuan, respectively, with a compound annual growth rate of 33.9%. As of the end of December 2023, the number of registered users on the company's travel service platform had reached 23.8 million.

Specifically, the high-speed growth of Ruqi Travel's revenue is mainly due to the growth of its active passenger numbers and the resulting increase in transaction volume. From 2021 to 2023, the company's order volume increased from 46.9 million to 97.7 million, with a compound annual growth rate of about 44.3%. During the same period, the average monthly active passengers of the company increased from 1.032 million in 2021 to 1.047 million in 2023; the transaction volume increased from 1.35 billion yuan to 2.74 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 42.5%.

While revenue is growing, the company's gross margin is also steadily increasing. From 2021 to 2023, Ruqi Travel's gross margin was -24.2%, -10.7%, and -7.0%, respectively. This is due to the company's strategy of increasing brand awareness and implementing regional expansion, which increases passenger stickiness and penetration, resulting in a reduction in passenger rewards for each order, while continuing to improve operational efficiency.

In the 'Greater Bay Area' market, Ruqi Travel is a representative of 'small and beautiful'.

In the long run, there is also a possibility of alleviating Ruqi Travel's profitability problem.

First of all, from the perspective of Ruqi Travel's business development, its ride-hailing business is 'high-fiving' and adopts a self-employed driver model. In the national ride-hailing platform compliance rate evaluation, Ruqi Travel has been ranked first 17 times. Later, as the company's business expanded, Ruqi Travel adopted a model of capacity joining merchants and self-employed drivers running in parallel, and self-driving drivers can enter Ruqi Travel through capacity joining merchants.

Expanding the proportion of capacity joining merchants can help Ruqi reduce some driver labor costs and achieve capacity expansion.

Secondly, in terms of opening up, Ruqi Travel can make good use of its advantages in serving government and enterprise customers in the Greater Bay Area, and use its self-owned high-quality driver resources to serve major customers to achieve greater value. Another advantage of serving B-side customers is that customers settle directly with the platform, which can bypass the 'toll fees' charged by other platforms and help reduce the increase in this expense.

At present, the average unit price of Ruqi Travel's travel service has greatly reduced, which is a good sign.

In summary, Ruqi Travel has shown a vigorous attitude towards Robotaxi commercialization, and objectively has certain advantages and chips reserves. Under the synergy of 'technology + vehicle + platform', the company has shown huge ecological value potential. Judging from its current basic position, focusing on resources in the Greater Bay Area has also become the first step for Ruqi Travel to stand in the industry. In the future, technology is still its starry sky, and with the accelerated release of Robotaxi commercialization, the business growth prospects of Ruqi Travel can be said to be shining.