Data from Xiaozhu also pointed out a sinking trend (a new concept refers to consumption seeping into the “lower-tiered” cities in China) is happening in the current China society.
A listing on Xiaozhu.com. PHOTO: Credit to Xiaozhu
Jan 15, 2019/EqualOcean- Xiaozhu (小猪短租), China’s answer to Airbnb, published its 2018 home-sharing service big data report on its official WeChat account.
The report shows that needs for cleaning and photography service have enjoyed a stunning growth rate for the past year. Home-cleaning service orders reached 200 thousand in 2018, the number of cleaners surpassed 6 thousand.
Trends of smart equipment to enhance security or just for leisure among middle to high-end listings on the Xiaozhu APP sprung up, Xiaozhu’s data indicates.
Refurnishing and landlord mall are becoming a new growth momentum for Xiaozhu.
Road trip and home-stay experience lured many companies for team building. In Beijing, home-stay experience in suburban districts grew 83% compared to 2017, the highest one among other main cities, Chengdu was the second with a 60% growth rate. Landlords from Beijing also emphasized more on smart furniture than any other cities.
Data from Xiaozhu also pointed out a sinking trend (下沉, a new concept refers to consumption seeping into the “lower-tiered” cities in China) is happening in the current China society. Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD, 拼多多), a threaten to Taobao, focusing on group deals and incentivizing customers with discounts if they invite friends to buy alongside them, is a representative of the trend.
Xiaozhu saw many Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities are listed in the most popular fifty cities including Leshan, Liangshan, Zhangjiajie, which are well-known sightseeing locations in China.
It seems that value-added service, smart equipment and sinking are the new sexy in home-sharing industry. Dec 25, 2018, Xiaozhu announced it rolled out a series of practices and adoptions to address safety issues like facial recognition-enabled smart locks (see this article).
The number of people using Online home-sharing app has reached 147 million as of 2018 in China according to a report conducted by iiMedia Research. Xiaozhu has 35 million active users as of September 2018. Airbnb did not disclose its users number in China, but AN li (安丽), the VP and Head of Public Policy of Airbnb China, shared some useful numbers in a conference: the company generated more than CNY 6.2 billion ( USD 930 million) economic value in China in 2017, and Airbnb China saw a 125% growth of listings compared to the same period in last year. In 2017, Airbnb has 175,000 active listings according to Airbnb’s co-founder and chief strategy officer Nathan Blecharczyk in an interview with GGV Capital in April 2018, one of its backer.