On September 11, 2025, Shengwei Era Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shengwei Era") once again submitted its main board listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, marking another attempt after its initial application expired in November 2024.
This company, operating under the main brands "Travel 365" and "365 Ride-hailing," appears to be a leader in intercity passenger transport digitization and an important participant in the ride-hailing market, but in reality faces multiple challenges including business dependence on Alibaba, continuous losses, and numerous consumer complaints.
Shengwei Era positions itself as "China's leading intercity and intracity road passenger transport information service provider," with its main business concentrated in two major areas: intercity road passenger transport services and intracity ride-hailing services.
In intercity travel, the company empowers traditional passenger stations through its "Cloud Station Services" system, moving ticket window sales online; through "Passenger Transport Connect," it provides integrated SaaS solutions for transport companies covering scheduling, settlement, and compliance.
In intracity travel, the company provides ride-hailing services through its "365 Ride-hailing" platform in cooperation with aggregation platforms such as AutoNavi. As of the end of June 2025, the company holds 204 ride-hailing licenses, has 1.7 million registered drivers, 84,000 monthly active drivers, and handles an average of 240,000 orders daily.
Financial data reveals another side of Shengwei Era's business expansion. From 2022 to 2024, the company's revenue grew from 816 million yuan to 1.594 billion yuan, with an annual compound growth rate of approximately 40%, demonstrating strong growth capability.
However, during the same period, the company's net losses attributable to shareholders were 499 million, 482 million, and 426 million yuan respectively, with cumulative losses of approximately 1.4 billion yuan over three and a half years, mainly due to high ride-hailing driver subsidies and market expansion costs.
In the first half of 2025, the company's revenue reached 903 million yuan, with adjusted losses reduced to 9.33 million yuan, and the loss ratio significantly dropping to 1%, indicating that scale effects are beginning to emerge.
Shengwei Era's shareholding structure shows characteristics of "Alibaba dominance with relative dispersion." According to the prospectus, Alibaba holds 27.01% of shares through Alibaba Travel, making it the company's largest shareholder.
The relationship between Shengwei Era and the Alibaba ecosystem has penetrated into every capillary of the business. The company derives over 80% of its revenue from ride-hailing services, and within ride-hailing service revenue, up to 90% depends on cooperation with AutoNavi.
From 2022 to the first half of 2025, the proportion of Shengwei Era's gross transaction value (GTV) generated through AutoNavi to its total ride-hailing service GTV was 92.9%, 89.5%, 93.9%, and 94.5% respectively.
This dependence is reflected not only in business but also in procurement relationships. From 2021 to 2023, Shengwei Era's procurement amounts from Alibaba were 34.2 million yuan, 54.5 million yuan, and 73.3 million yuan respectively, accounting for 6% to 7% of total procurement.
According to media reports, platforms under Shengwei Era face numerous consumer complaints. The Black Cat Complaint platform has accumulated thousands of complaints about "365 Ride-hailing," involving service quality and regulatory compliance issues.
Information from Qichacha shows that in 2024 alone, 365 Ride-hailing was involved in 35 administrative penalties, mainly concentrated in cities such as Hefei in Anhui, Kunming, and Shaanxi.
The penalties were mostly for violations such as drivers not obtaining "Online Car-hailing Driver Certificates" or vehicles providing ride-hailing services not obtaining "Online Car-hailing Transport Certificates."
Competition in the ride-hailing industry is increasingly fierce, and the capital market's attitude toward travel platforms appears relatively cautious. In 2024, OnTime and DiDi Chuxing successively listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but market performance was not ideal.
DiDi Chuxing fell 22.5% on its first trading day, and OnTime also dropped 3.14% on its listing day, showing that investors still have doubts about travel platforms' profitability and business models.
Shengwei Era's choice to go against the trend at this time reflects both the company's confidence in its business development and possibly its urgent need for capital input.
For Shengwei Era, this IPO is not only a financing opportunity but also a comprehensive test of its business model and market competitiveness. The core challenge facing the company is how to reduce dependence on a single platform and improve profitability.
Industry insiders point out that Shengwei Era needs to prove that its technology has platform neutrality, meaning that its ride-hailing dispatch system and operational capabilities can seamlessly migrate to other aggregation platforms or independent scenarios.
More importantly, the company needs to obtain large-scale orders outside the Alibaba ecosystem to prove its independent customer acquisition capabilities, otherwise its growth narrative will be difficult to sustain.
Shengwei Era plans to use the IPO proceeds to strengthen aggregation platform capacity, expand provincial passenger transport digitization projects, and pursue acquisition investments and strategic alliance opportunities.
However, whether the capital market will pay for such an enterprise that heavily depends on the Alibaba ecosystem, continues to lose money, and faces numerous complaints remains unknown.
Against the backdrop of overall cooling tech valuations in Hong Kong stocks, Shengwei Era must prove to investors that it is not just an "outsourced worker" dependent on the Alibaba ecosystem, but a technology company with genuine core technology, independent customer acquisition capabilities, and a clear path to profitability.