Research on Competition of Ride-hailing from the Perspective of Two-sided Markets in China

Ride-hailing has experienced different stages of development with different characteristics in China. The paper studies the platform competition from the perspective of two-sided markets in the development period and the stable period by two-sided market model. In growth period, as the cross-network externality gap widens, two platforms would gradually become the smallest difference, and the low quality platform would replace the high quality platform to gain profit advantage. In the stable period, direct regulation of the platform can have a minor impact on prices, surplus, platform profits and social welfare.