In other words, at the end of the lunar year in a bleak and desolate period, the children's shoes of many Internet manufacturers are actually not very happy, after all, many large factories have laid off employees, and even, the eighth sister heard that after a few years, there are still some layoffs on the road. However, today, Zhou Hongyi, who has not appeared for a long time and feels that he has fallen a little, today's wave of speeches has aroused the interest of the eighth sister.
Zhou Hongyi said: "360 will not lay off employees. 360 has experienced many ups and downs and twists over the years, and now it is facing the opportunity of transformation, and the biggest asset in its hands is the team. Because as long as there is a team, there are employees who work hard to innovate, you can do what you want to do. 360 will also continue to expand recruitment. ”
This is what Zhou Hongyi said in his internal speech. It is said that some children's shoes are tearful, love horses, before everyone competed with the year-end award, this now, the boss does not lay off staff are worth taking out a big book. However, the eighth sister has always had a question, this week the boss has actually not been very smooth in the past ten years, missed the entire mobile era, not to say, toss back to the domestic listing is also stepping on a lot of pits, the market value and nearly ten years ago when the listing is almost the same, 360 is no longer the small giant of the year. People's money-making giants and small popular fried chickens are laying off employees, why doesn't 360 lay off employees? Don't talk too much.
Let's start with how "miserable" 360 has been lately.
360's revenue is sluggish, and the revenue in these two years has shrunk before.
The shrinkage of profits is even worse. In 2020, the net profit shrank by half, and in the first three quarters of 2021, it shrank by nearly half year-on-year, only 1/5 of 2019.
Among them, the biggest bug is that 360 from the PC era to the current advertising old book is really not good. In the first half of 2021, 360 Internet commercialization and value-added services achieved a total revenue of 3.651 billion yuan, a slight decline year-on-year. Among them, the revenue of Internet advertising and service business was 3.059 billion yuan, down 7.28% year-on-year. In 2020, the revenue of Internet advertising and services was 7.512 billion yuan, down 22.75% year-on-year.
In the era of the rise of ByteDance, 360's share of advertising revenue is declining. According to statistics, in 2020, 360's Internet advertising revenue has fallen out of the top ten of the market.
So, then again, since the company's main business is already a bit bad, why doesn't 360 lay off employees? Mainly because 360 has actually faded out of the 2C market and plunged into the 2B market, and it costs a lot of money to develop 2B. For example, now, the main reason for the sharp decline in 360's current profit is, on the one hand, the slump of the high-margin Internet advertising value-added business, but more importantly, 360 is transforming into a 2B market, and the cost has increased significantly.
However, compared with his peers, especially compared with his former comrades-in-arms and the "Qian Xin" who finally parted ways, Zhou Hongyi's situation was still much better. After all, 360 is still quite profitable, even if it is such a slump, advertising service revenue is also six or seven billion a year, and the profit wood is problematic. And Qianxin loses a lot of billions a year. The cash on the 360 account is also sufficient, and 26.5 billion yuan is lying on the account. This money is incomparable with the Internet giants, but in the 2B cybersecurity market, it is enough, seven or eight times that of Qianxin.
Behind Zhou Hongyi's announcement of no layoffs is a greater transformation of 2B security. Today, for example, Zhou Hongyi said in an internal letter that he will transform a digital security company in an all-round way. Among them, he highlighted his full commitment to industrial digitalization and serving the digital transformation of governments and traditional enterprises.
From the perspective and intensity of this transformation, Zhou Hongyi should indeed recruit talents, especially hacker security talents and sales talents with government-enterprise relations.
Of course, for the Internet advertising business that only plays the role of cash cows, this is really just a "sunset" industry, it is estimated that this part of the 360 children's shoes must be planned early and transformed as soon as possible.
As for whether Zhou Hongyi's transformation this time can be successful, we don't dare to ask, and we don't dare to say. Zhou Hongyi has always been accustomed to trading the 2C market product manager thinking can play the 2B market? Besides, in the 2B network security market, the competition is also very fierce, the water is very deep, can 360 finally win? After all, the scale of 360's 2B security business is not very large, accounting for less than 1/5 of the revenue.
Well, we can only walk and see.