AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/16 Report--

China's two media giants have officially "ripped off", saying that there is unfair competition in the exchange of cars, and Auto Home will take the change of cars to court.

According to the latest case of the Haidian Court in Beijing, the plaintiff Beijing Automobile Home claimed that it was the owner and operator of the "Automobile Home" website platform and the mobile application "Automobile Home", and the main body of the operation of the Automobile Home Company in the country. "Automobile House" is not only the abbreviation of the plaintiff's enterprise name, but also the name of the website. at the same time, the words "Automobile House" and "Automobile House look at cars and buy cars" have also been registered as trademarks, and Beijing Automobile House Company is the trademark holder.

The Beijing Auto Home Company found that the Beijing E-car Internet Information Technology Company has released the mobile application "Yi car" on the Apple App Store, with the name displayed as "easy car-the car Home for Professional car viewing and car purchase". The preview text describes "change of car-a professional car selection, car purchase platform, and a necessary home for car users." After downloading the software, it is shown that the copyright owner is Beijing easy car Information Technology Co., Ltd.

The plaintiff Beijing Auto Home believes that Beijing easy car Information Technology Co., Ltd. is the copyright owner and operator of the mobile application software "change car", providing car quotation, car friend community, car service and other services for car users. Both Auto House and Yi car are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with the same main business, and both are information service platforms for automobile users and enterprises. The original defendant has a competitive relationship in the field of automobile Internet services, while the mobile application software "change car" developed and operated by the second defendant arbitrarily uses the word "Automobile House" in its name and text description, which is misleading and confusing. it seriously infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of the plaintiff, disturbs the order of market competition, and constitutes unfair competition.

Therefore, Beijing Auto Home Information Technology Co., Ltd. sued Beijing E-car Information Technology Co., Ltd. and Beijing E-car Internet Information Technology Co., Ltd. to the court, it is required to order that counterfeiting constitutes unfair competition, immediately stop counterfeiting, publish a newspaper statement to eliminate the impact and compensate for economic losses and reasonable expenditure totaling 1.183 million yuan.

At present, the Haidian Court accepted the case, and the case is under further trial.

Automobile House is one of the largest automobile Internet service platforms in China. For the whole year of 2019, the net revenue of Auto House was 8.42 billion yuan, an increase of 16.4% over the same period last year, and the net profit was 3.2 billion yuan, compared with 2.87 billion yuan in 2018. As of December 31, 2019, Auto House had 4198 employees.

In the first quarter of 2020, net revenue fell 4 per cent to 1.547 billion yuan from a year earlier, while net profit attributable to shareholders fell 9 per cent to 587 million yuan, compared with 646 million yuan in the same period last year, according to results for the first quarter of 2020.

From the perspective of revenue composition, media revenue is the main source of income for Auto House, and other businesses include marketing clues, online markets, and so on.

The change car financial report showed that the full-year operating income in 2019 was 10.753 billion yuan, up 1.6% from a year earlier, and the net loss for the whole year was 1.183 billion yuan, compared with a net loss of 679 million yuan in 2018.

It was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010, and Tencent became a strategic shareholder in 2015. Recently, it announced that Tencent and Hammer Capital (dark horse capital) have signed an agreement to privatize the barter car, and the buyer group will buy shares in the barter car at a premium of about 15%. The total transaction value will reach 1.1 billion US dollars, or about 7.788 billion yuan. The merger is expected to be completed in the second half of 2020, and the acquisition funds of the investor consortium will be a combination of cash and existing equity. When the deal is finally completed, the barter car will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

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