Text: Qingli
Today, in the 21st century, the competition between countries is largely reflected in the competition between enterprises in various countries, which country has industry leaders and occupies a large share of the global market, the more competitive the country.
Generally speaking, the global 500 companies list published by Fortune magazine is not only regarded as a barometer of the economic development of various countries, but also a platform to show the competitiveness of the world's largest enterprises. In addition to comparing the number of companies entering the world's top 500 companies to evaluate the competitiveness of a country, there is another indicator that is also key, that is, unicorn enterprises.
The so-called unicorn enterprises generally refer to enterprises that have been established for less than 10 years; the valuation is more than 1 billion US dollars, and a small number of enterprises are valued at more than 10 billion US dollars. In addition, related enterprises must also have the characteristics of industry sunrise and rapid growth. It is the leader of a certain industry segment, and some of the companies eventually become the hegemons of an emerging field. Compared with the world's top 500 enterprises, the index value of unicorn enterprises lies in reflecting a country's industrial innovation ability and the growth of emerging enterprises. It can be said that the number of unicorn enterprises is a very important evaluation index for both enterprises and national competitiveness.
So which country has the most unicorns at present? Some time ago, the Hurun Research Institute released the "2021 Global Unicorn List", according to the list, a total of 1058 unicorn companies were listed this time, more than twice the number of last year (472). The total value of the listed enterprises reached 23.7 trillion yuan. These companies are distributed in 42 countries and 221 cities, of which the largest number of unicorn companies is the United States, reaching 487; China ranks second with the number of unicorn companies; India ranks third with 54. It is worth mentioning that in the two developed countries of South Korea and Japan, there are very few unicorn companies, only 10 and 6 respectively, and the latter has not even squeezed into the top ten of the list. In addition, Hurun also criticized Italy by name, saying that it is the only country in the top ten countries in the global GDP ranking without unicorns.
Overall, companies from China and the United States account for 74% of the global total. In terms of numbers, the United States has increased by 254 from last year, and China has 74. From the above data, we can see that the advantages of China and the United States in terms of innovation ability and competitiveness are still very prominent. So what are the new changes on this list? Which companies have dropped out of the list? And what new faces are emerging?
First of all, it is worth mentioning that Didi, Lu Jinsuo, Airbnb, Kuaishou, etc., which ranked in the top ten last year, have all withdrawn from this list because they chose to go public. Klarna, a payment platform based in Stockholm, Sweden, Canva, an online design platform in Sydney, Australia, Databricks, an artificial intelligence data company in San Francisco, and Instacart, a grocery delivery platform, and Revolut, a digital bank in London, have become the "new faces" of the top ten list.
In this unicorn ranking, there are 4 U.S. companies in the top ten. Among them, Elon Musk's SpaceX (Space Exploration Technology Corporation) valuation increased by 400 billion yuan to 640 billion yuan, surpassing the payment platform Stripe (600 billion yuan) to rank third, becoming the largest unicorn in the United States. At present, the company has developed Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy carrier rockets, cargo Dragon spacecraft, manned Dragon spacecraft, etc., and is actively promoting the "Starlink" plan, aiming to create a global network composed of small satellites, and has launched a total of 1944 satellites.
This time, China has 3 companies in the top ten of the "2021 Global Unicorn List", namely ByteDance, Cainiao Network and Ant Group.
Rookie ranked 9th. As a logistics company, ranking ninth in the world, it can be said that it is a very good result. In fact, the development of rookie in recent years is indeed very eye-catching. In order to build its own logistics, Cainiao not only plays the role of a platform, but also makes great efforts within a few years, building a huge and efficient logistics network around the world, and continuously strengthening logistics capacity building. Now Cainiao not only has a broad market in China, but also its logistics infrastructure such as 7 overseas warehouses, 6 global logistics hubs, and 30,000 groups of self-built self-pick-up cabinets has spread overseas.
Internationally, Cainiao's efficient global logistics network has been able to achieve "5 US dollars and 10 days" in 20 countries, with more than 240 charter flights per month (more than 300 during the Double Eleven period) traveling to and from Central Europe. Cainiao has not only successfully entered the international logistics market, allowing the world to witness the rapid progress of China's logistics, but also built a key channel for domestic goods to go to sea, becoming a "logistics force" for China's foreign trade economic growth. And with the continuous improvement of the strength of rookies, it also means that China's logistics is striding into the ranks of international giants. This can be said to be of great significance to the improvement of China's competitiveness.
Ant Group fell one place to rank second, with a valuation of 1 trillion yuan. But it remains by far the world's most valuable fintech unicorn. At the same time, Ali is still the enterprise with the most incubated unicorns, with a total value of 1,249.5 billion yuan. The other three are Taoyuan (13 billion yuan), Zebra Network (10 billion yuan) and Ali Sports (6.5 billion yuan).
Of the global unicorn companies, 50 are incubated by parent companies, of which 49 are from China. The only ali is JD.com, which has incubated 3 unicorn companies; in addition, like Didi, Ping An, Geely, Five Star Holdings, SF, 58 Tongcheng, Haier, Skyworth and Lepu Medical have also incubated 2 unicorns. Compared with the strong incubation ability of the domestic parent company, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet abroad have obtained "zero eggs".
To the surprise of many people, the world's largest unicorn that is in the first place, the world's largest unicorn that suppresses Ant Group and Musk's SpaceX, is not an American company, but ByteDance, which we are very familiar with. As we all know, ByteDance has launched explosive products such as Douyin and Today's Headlines. According to the data, the average use time of douyin short videos is 5 times that of games, and it has become the new hegemon of the Internet.
In the overseas market, byteDance's strength is also unquestionable. According to the data, ByteDance's TikTok (Douyin Overseas Edition) has exceeded 3 billion downloads worldwide, and some research reports predict that it is expected to become the world's third largest social networking platform in 2022, after Facebook and Instagram, with 755 million monthly active users. Up to now, ByteDance, which has only been established for 9 years, has achieved a value-added of 1.73 trillion yuan, and finally reached a valuation of 2.25 trillion yuan. It can be said to be the world's largest unicorn.
According to this list, it can be seen that in recent years, many of China's enterprises have been at the forefront of the world in terms of innovation and competitiveness. Moreover, among the top 10 unicorn companies in the world, only byte and ant have broken through the trillion market value, which not only fully confirms the strength of Chinese enterprises, but also allows the world to witness the strength of China's economy again. It is believed that with the further development of China's economy in the future, more unicorn enterprises will be born and rise, and represent China to the peak of the world. Is that right?