As a member of BAT, Alibaba has made great contributions to China's Internet and economy, especially its e-commerce platform, which is the leader in China's online shopping field, and the Double Eleven Shopping Festival created has also become a national shopping carnival in China.
During the Double Eleven Shopping Festival in 2021, the total transaction volume of the Tmall platform reached 540.3 billion, once again breaking the record. As of December 14, 2021, Ali's market value reached 331.463 billion US dollars, and its revenue in the third quarter of 2021 also reached 221.084 billion yuan, an increase of 37% year-on-year.
After the development and growth of Alibaba, it has also embarked on the same development model as its peers - acquisition, holding a lot of funds, Alibaba benchmarked Tencent, acquisition and investment of hundreds of companies, including the UC, AutoNavi and so on that we are familiar with. Some companies have developed well after being acquired by Ali, such as AutoNavi Map, which now belongs to the first echelon in the field of mobile map navigation.
However, not all the companies acquired by Ali are so lucky, and some of them have gone downhill because of their acquisition, and even withdrawn from the historical stage, such as the following 4 well-known brands.
Youku, which was acquired, has since fallen behind
Before being acquired by Alibaba, Youku also ranked first in the field of video websites in China, especially Youku Tudou Co., Ltd. after the merger with Tudou, with a market share of 3.5% in the global online video market, which is the second largest video website in the world.
In 2015, Ali announced that it would acquire Youku Tudou, and in 2016, Youku Tudou officially became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ali. It should be said that in the early days of entering the Ali family, with the help of traffic and money, Youku still achieved good results, and in 2016, the number of Youku members exceeded 30 million.
However, the good times were not long, after being acquired, Tudou was the first to lose its aura, and its sense of existence in the field of online video gradually weakened. Close brothers have fallen, Youku is not much better, although Alibaba's 2021 fiscal year financial report shows that Youku members increased by 35% year-on-year, but everyone also knows that Youku has fallen from the first echelon, and when there is no blockbuster drama, the sense of existence is very low.
Shrimp rice music and daily sounds, has disappeared
In order to realize the "grand dream" of Alibaba Entertainment, Ali has also acquired many entertainment-related companies, among which the well-known ones are Shrimp Music and Everyday Sound. The first to fall is Everyday Sound, acquired by Ali in 2014, renamed "Ali Planet" by Gao Xiaosong and others in 2016, adding content sections such as Star Plaza, Star Information, star mall, etc., the changes were great, but soon failed, and in 2016, the music service was stopped, and Every Day Sound has since disappeared.
Shrimp rice had better luck and fell late. In 2013, Shrimp Music was acquired by Ali, and then formed Ali Music with Everyday Sound, but after the fall of Everyday Music, Shrimp Music also gradually announced the official cessation of service in early February 2021 due to copyright and operation issues, and Shrimp Music also withdrew from the Internet.
Some people say that if Shrimp Music had not been sold to Ali, it might not have gone to the end, but Wang Hao, the founder of Shrimp Music, said that if it had not been sold that year, Shrimp Music would have fallen long ago. However, now it seems that Ali has not been able to continue to live for shrimp music for long, and finally he is out.
Hungry, from then on, under the United States
Now there are only two mainstream takeaway platforms in China - Meituan and Hungry, in fact, in the field of takeaway, Hungry is 5 years earlier than Meituan. In the early days, Ele.me was synonymous with takeaway, and even if there was a Meituan takeaway later, Ele.me's industry position was still very stable, and in 2017, it also acquired some other takeaways.
In 2018, Alibaba wholly acquired Ele.me, making it a part of Alibaba's local life services. But it is very strange, after being acquired by Ali, Ele.me, the market share fell rapidly, according to the data of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, in the 2021 Q1 mainstream takeaway platform transaction volume distribution, the proportion of Meituan takeaway reached 67.3%, and Ele.me plus Ele.me star selection also accounted for only 30.9%.
Now, among the takeaway workers often seen on the street, there are not many people wearing Hungry Mo costumes, and the performance of Hungry Mo is far lower than that of Meituan Takeaway. According to the data released by Ali, in the third fiscal quarter of 2021, Ali's local life service revenue was 8.348 billion yuan, which was mainly from Ele.me, while Meituan's catering takeaway revenue in the third quarter of 2021 reached 26.485 billion yuan, which is equivalent to 3 times more revenue than Ele.me.
Why do many of the companies that Ali has acquired end up either becoming mediocre or outright? Many netizens feel that compared with Tencent, it should be that Ali always wants to let the new members fully integrate into the Ali family, while Tencent only gives money to traffic and decentralization, so the company that "sells" Ali does not "live" very well, and the company acquired by Tencent is living well.
The answer to this question is very complicated, and it is estimated that Ali has not figured it out internally, so what do you think is the cause?