经济学人下载:从0到70(十亿) 优步究竟经历了什么(3)

Competition at home and abroad will affect Uber's profit margins in the medium term.
在发展中期，优步的利润率会受到来自国内外竞争的影响。

Thibaud Simphal, the boss of Uber's French operations, admits that ride-hailing could be “a high-volume, low-margin business. It’s transportation. It's like retail.”
优步公司法国分部老总希博德·辛法尔指出，打车服务“生意量大，利润率低，它属于交通业，也像零售业”。

For the time being, investors are willing to accept these low margins as Uber pursues growth above all else.
优步的当务之急是持续发展，投资商们为此可以暂时接受较低的利润率。

But their patience may wear thin if the intense competition drags on.
但如果激烈的竞争持续下去，这种耐心会消磨殆尽。

Amazon built up its business at a time when few competitors shared its vision of the size of the e-commerce opportunity.
亚马逊发展初期，鲜有竞争者预见到未来电子商务的发展规模。

Uber does not operate in a world of low expectations.
不过在优步所处的时代，人们可不是那么没有野心。

One wild card is whether Lyft remains an independent company.
有一个不确定因素便是Lyft是否会保持独立经营。

There have been reports it has been seeking a buyer.
有报道称它正谋求并购。

In 2014 Uber might have been that buyer, something that has not been previously reported; negotiations fell apart over price.
2014年，Uber曾有意并购该公司，这一消息此前并未传出；之后双方由于价格原因协商失败。

Mr Kalanick insists he does not regret the outcome: “It's a really powerful thing for a company to compete. It makes you fierce about serving your customer.”
卡拉尼克先生坚称对结果并不遗憾，“对于企业来说，竞争的作用巨大，它能让你竭尽全力服务好客户。”

Having a rival also helps deflect regulators' scrutiny.
同时，竞争对手也能转移监管机构的审查。

Yet many of Uber's investors wish the two had gone forward with a deal, so that Uber would not have to keep battling for share.
优步的投资人期望二者达成交易，那样优步就不用为抢占份额一直斗下去。

If the competition can be won with money and determination, Uber has to be well-positioned.
如果靠砸钱和决心就能打胜仗，优步需要找准自己的定位。

It was not the first firm to recognise the potential of peer-to-peer ride-sharing: Sidecar, a now-defunct startup in San Francisco, got the ball rolling. Lyft came next.
它并不是首个认识到P2P共享出行潜力的公司。现已倒闭的位于旧金山的Sidecar拉开了此业务的序幕。随后是Lyft。

But Mr Kalanick used the momentum achieved by raising a lot of capital and expanding rapidly to great effect.
但是卡拉尼克通过大量筹资和迅速扩展市场为优步蓄势，引起了极大的反响。

Uber's huge cash pile now acts as an “almost unassailable barrier” to new entrants, says Sunil Paul, the founder of Sidecar.
Sidecar创始人苏尼尔·保罗说，对于新进入市场的公司来说，Uber的巨额现金流就像一道“无懈可击的屏障”。

And even with $9 billion, Mr Kalanick does not rule out the possibility of asking investors for more: “If the money is there, that means my competitors will raise it, and that means I need to as well.”
即便坐拥90亿美金，卡拉尼克还在继续引入尽可能多的投资，他表示：“如果钱还留在资本市场，就意味着我的竞争对手一定会想办法筹集资本，那么我也必须这么做。”

However dominant Uber's position may be, Mr Kalanick will not let up.
不管以后优步地位会有多么强势，卡拉尼克也丝毫不会松懈。

“He always sees himself as an underdog,” says Thuan Pham, Uber's chief technology officer.
优步公司的首席技术总监顺·范说，卡拉尼克先生他总觉得自己是个失败者。

Uber is not Mr Kalanick's first startup; that was Scour, a file-sharing firm which filed for bankruptcy in 2000 after being sued by media companies for $250 billion for copyright infringement.
卡拉尼克的首次创业并不是优步，而是Scour，一个做文件共享的企业。公司在2000年由于侵犯版权，被媒体企业起诉并被判罚2500亿美金，随后破产。

He sold his second startup to Akamai, an internet firm, for a modest $15m.
他创立的第二个公司，以并不算高的1500万美金的价格卖给了互联网公司Akamai。

Those experiences left him obsessed with details and intensely focused on improvement.
这些经历，使得他对细节极为苛求，对自我完善极度关注。

He enforces a feedback system called T3B3 (top-three, bottom-three skills) , requiring his deputies to give him brutally honest feedback.
他推行了一套T3B3（最重要和最不重要的3项技能）反馈系统，要求下属们给予最大胆诚实的反馈。

“He changes himself faster than we can change our algorithms,” says Mr Pham.
范先生说：“他变得很快，我们的算法更新速度都没他变得那么快。”

In the T3B3 process he shared his observation that Mr Kalanick should thank people more; now, apparently, he does.
范曾T3B3中分享道，“卡拉尼克应该多感谢身边的人”；现在，很明显，他做到了。

Uber has also shown a capacity for change.
优步同样显示出了变革的能力。

It launched UberX when many employees at the company thought it should not risk disrupting its black-car service by offering a cheaper option.
就在公司员工认为不该冒着扰乱其高端服务的风险提供廉价出行方案时，优步推出了UberX。

And this August, after years spent ploughing huge amounts of money into its business in China, it announced that it was merging its Chinese business with that of a local rival, Didi Chuxing, in return for a fifth of the new firm, worth around $7 billion today.
优步在中国市场投入了多年时间和巨额资金，而就在今年8月，优步宣布与中国市场最大竞争对手滴滴出行合并，合并后优步将获得新公司20%的股份，总值达70亿美元。

Investors were thrilled.
投资者们都激情亢奋。

They had worried that Uber would continue to lose billions of dollars chasing its Chinese dream.
之前他们都还担心优步会继续砸掉数十亿美金来追寻自己的中国梦。

Mr Kalanick is extremely secretive about Uber's financial data, but in the first two quarters of 2016, with $2.1 billion in revenue, the company lost at least $1.3 billion, according to reports, and there are good reasons to think that a lot of that was lost in China.
尽管卡拉尼克先生对优步的财务数据高度保密，但仍有报道称，该公司2016年一、二季度的总收入为21亿美元，亏损了13亿，而且有充分理由证明，这些钱大部分都是亏在了中国市场。

Now Uber can share in the growth of the Chinese market without spending another dime.
现在，优步终于不用再花一分钱，就能享受壮大的中国市场所带来的可观利益。

Having sorted China out, Uber is able to concentrate on promising pickings in other developing markets where governments may not be quite as determined as China's was to see a local firm win out.
放下中国市场后，优步便能将精力集中在其他有发展前景的新兴市场上，那些发展中国家的政府不像中国政府一样偏袒本土企业。

In India, South-East Asia and Latin America rates of car ownership are low.
在印度、东南亚以及拉丁美洲地区，汽车拥有率很低。

Just as consumers in emerging markets leapfrogged the desktop internet and went straight to mobile devices, they could choose to bypass buying a car and move around via ride-hailing instead.
正如新兴市场的消费者跨过桌面网络而直接转向移动设备一样，他们也能省略买车这一步，直接进入叫车服务时代。

Mr Jonas of Morgan Stanley reckons that by 2030 around 25% of miles travelled in India will be on ride-hailing and ride-sharing services.
摩根斯坦利的琼斯认为到2030年，印度1/4的出行将通过叫车和拼车的方式实现。

Fares in these markets will be lower—in Mumbai a commuter's hour-and-a-half Uber costs 500 rupees ($7.50) —but the size of the population means there will be a lot of transactions.
虽然这些市场的车费会降低，例如在孟买使用优步出行一个半小时只需500卢比 (7.5美金)；但这些国家的广大人口意味着未来会有大量的订单交易。

At the moment Uber is the underdog in India, lagging Ola, its local rival.
目前，在印度，优步的业绩不敌其本土对手——欧拉。

Its huge cash resources mean that it is still a competitor, though.
但资金充足的优步仍然是个不可忽视的竞争者。

In Mexico and Brazil, it is the leader.
在墨西哥和巴西，优步绝对是市场的领头羊。

And as a global brand it will be best placed to serve the small but disproportionately lucrative global business clientele.
作为一个全球品牌，其最佳定位是专为全球商业人士提供服务，虽然此类人群较小，但却能获取高额利润。

To distinguish itself from its competitors, Uber is investing heavily in developing its own mapping capabilities by buying assets, including the mapping startup deCarta, and hoovering up talent from Google.
优步为了彰显不同，正斥重金开发其地图绘制能力。它已经购买了包括创业公司迪卡塔在内的一些资产，并从谷歌内部挖掘人才。

(Uber dreams “big” but “not as broad” as Google, says Brian McClendon, a high-profile hire from Google who now runs Uber’s mapping team. )
（曾就职于谷歌的高层员工，现任优步绘图组的负责人布莱恩·麦克伦登表示，优步的愿景“很大”，但却不如谷歌那样“包罗万象”。）