Under the complex external variables, the Internet giants return to their "duty".
Author | Fish three falcons
Edit | Zheng Xuan
The era of Internet giants "staking the ground" is over.
On February 22, Tencent's social e-commerce business "Little Goose Spelling" was exposed to be shut down. At present, the independent App of "Little Goose Fight" has been removed, and the WeChat Mini Program is still in operation. Tencent responded that the shutdown of "Little Goose Fight" is based on strategic focus considerations, and employees of the relevant teams will be transferred to other projects and re-select matching positions within the group.
A year ago, or even half a year ago, "strategic focus" was a term that was not comparable to china's Internet giants. In the era when giants are desperately racing to seize the land, "expansion", "diversification", and "cross-border" are the favorite words of various "O" Internet companies.
However, with the gradual disappearance of the mobile Internet dividend and the tightening of the regulatory environment in the second half of 2021, Internet giants have begun to reorganize their business scope, represented by Tencent, ByteDance, and Ali, more and more pioneering businesses that have nothing to do with the main business, or shut down and dismantle, or sell and split.
The "chicken ribs" that are "abandoned" by the giants, the little goose fight is not the first, nor will it be the last.
01 Little Goose Fight, from star to shutdown
Little Goose Spelling Mini Program and Public Account have been online for less than two years, and the independent App has been online for less than a year, and what is different from today's low-key ending is that the original "Little Goose Spelling" also carried the "dream" of Tencent's entry into e-commerce.
Tencent's self-operated e-commerce products performed mediocre in the early years. After the 3Q war, Tencent's thinking shifted from self-operation to investment cooperation. As early as 2012, Tencent tried to make up for its shortcomings in e-commerce by investing in JD.com; then invested in e-commerce platforms such as Pinduoduo, Youzan, and Weimob.
The emergence of the epidemic in 2020 and the outbreak of live streaming with goods have led to the rise of content e-commerce, and Tencent, which sees the opportunity, can't help but shoot at e-commerce again.
In April 2020, once launched, Little Goose Pinduo was regarded as a product that benchmarked "Pinduoduo". According to media reports, the project is one of the core innovation projects of the Nbase team under Tencent's PCG business group, based on Tencent's diversified social ecology and huge user traffic, relying on the product recommendation and goods delivery mode of the user's social network.
These are the "natural" advantages of the little goose fight, and many people have also expressed optimism about its future development. However, similar to the e-commerce products that Tencent has done in the past, the two years of the launch of The Little Goose Have not made too much splash in the e-commerce market, which is in stark contrast to the video number launched later in a few months to win hundreds of millions of monthly lives.
At the same time, with the change of the regulatory situation, Tencent's desire to "explore" e-commerce is also decreasing. On December 23 last year, Tencent and JD.com announced that Tencent would release about 460 million shares of JD.com equity held by Tencent to shareholders in the form of interim dividends, and Tencent's shareholding in JD.com would be reduced from 17% to 2.3%.
As soon as the news came out, although Tencent and JD.com did not explain too much about this move, a number of media analysts believed that this may be a choice made under the anti-monopoly requirements of relevant departments.
Business development is less than initially expected, coupled with the adjustment of strategic focus under the regulatory situation, may be the direct reason for Tencent's sudden decision to shut down Xiao ge fought.
02 The "Hand" That Was Taken Back
Domestic Internet giants have always had BATTMD said, Geek Park according to public reports comb statistics, since 2021, these six Internet giants have shut down, cut, shrink more than 20 new and old businesses. The details are shown in the following figure.
Among them, education and financial products, which have been sharply tightened last year, are the "hardest hit areas".
Just a day before the takedown of "Little Goose Fight", Byte reported that it would sell "Wenxing Online", the operating entity of its securities business Dolphin Stock App, to Hualin Securities.
According to byteDance's relevant persons told China Securities News, other operating entities of Byte's securities business are also in contact with potential counterparties or internal shutdown, and ByteDance will completely divest the securities business.
The news did not come suddenly.
In September last year, there were media reports that ByteDance intended to sell its securities business, and since the first half of 2021, it has communicated with CICC, CITIC, Fosun Group, Niu Stock King, Oriental Wealth, etc., two of which have given letters of intent to invest. Byte also responded frankly: the company contracted its financial-related business and did have plans to sell the securities sector.
In fact, according to a person familiar with the matter quoted by LatePost, ByteDance has not had much determination and budget invested in the Dolphin Stock App, which has been online for four years and has only 133,900 daily active users. Therefore, for ByteDance, shutting down the securities business can not only prevent financial risks and comply with regulatory requirements, but also be harmless to its overall development.
Mutual aid applications, which also have the nature of financial products, have also been the most important food for Internet giants. Whether it is Tencent, Ali/Ant, or Didi and Meituan, they have launched their own mutual aid products.
However, with the issuance of the "Analysis of Illegal Commercial Insurance Activities and Suggestions on Countermeasures and Suggestions" issued by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission in September 2020, it pointed out that some pre-charging model platforms have formed precipitated funds and have the risk of running away, and external supervision has become more stringent.
In January 2021, "Meituan Mutual Aid" announced its closure, in October, Didi's "Little Guardian" announced its offline, and Ali's "Mutual Treasure" also stopped running in January this year.
For the Internet platform to frequently "extend" their hands to other fields, some netizens once commented: "Internet platforms should not think of monopolizing everything, especially finance, education, small business and hawker baskets."
In a word.
In the past year, the online education industry has experienced many ups and downs, and after the "double reduction", the education business of major Internet manufacturers has to be passively or actively shut down.
On November 16 last year, Tencent Happy Mouse English shut down its service, barely surviving to 2022, byte's four major online education businesses - "GOGOKID", "You Shoot One", "Qingbei Small Class" and "Tangyuan English", also issued a suspension announcement on February 18.
The same is true for community group buying, from the fiery fight in 2020 to the collective "battle royale" in 2021, but it is only a short year. Alibaba has repeatedly participated in the investment of the Ten Hui Group, shut down the business of 21 urban circles across the country in August last year, and at about the same time, Didi's Orange Heart Preferred has made a wide range of adjustments and contractions, and other companies that are still insisting have become much more low-key.
In addition, byte casual games Ohayoo layoffs, cross-border women's independent station Dmonstudio shutdown, Ali's shrimp music shutdown, social e-commerce "Tao Xiaopu" stopped trading, etc., to a certain extent, indicating that in the fields of games, e-commerce, music and other fields, Byte, Ali and other big manufacturers are also slowing down and turning to focus on their main core business.
03 Rewritten "Rules"
Relying on strong capital power to invest in and acquire start-ups, in order to expand the company's business territory and seize market share, it was once the only magic weapon for the rapid expansion of Internet giants.
However, when the snowball of capital is getting bigger and bigger, the "tentacles" probed by the Internet platform cover almost half of the socio-economic system, and its own influence increases at the same time, the risks behind it are also increasing.
On December 24, 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation announced that it would file an investigation into suspected monopolistic behaviors such as "choosing one of the two" against Alibaba Group in accordance with the report.
Antitrust guns began to ring out, and the rules of Internet competition were broken.
In January 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued a draft amendment to the Anti-Monopoly Law; in November, the State Anti-Monopoly Administration was formally established, and anti-monopoly work was gradually normalized.
In the past year, there have been 87 cases of illegal penalties in the Internet field, 118 cases of "anti-monopoly" administrative penalties, Ali and Meituan have received huge fines for the implementation of "two choices one" monopoly behavior, and the stock prices of Chinese Internet companies have plunged.
In an increasingly complex external environment, the "magic weapon" of the past is no longer "manifested", and it will no longer be a rational choice to spend too much energy to test the waters of cross-border business. For Internet giants, orderly divestment of non-core, risky and poorly returned businesses, focusing on the core business of the main business, and creating external value may be a more appropriate way out.
Before Tencent said "strategic focus", ByteDance was also taking back the focus of its business. When the news of byte splitting the real estate business was reported in 2021, according to the surging news, an investor involved in the spin-off of Happiness said. According to the idea of focusing on the main business byte, in addition to the previous sale of securities business and now the spin-off of the real estate business, it will continue to spin off its vertical information businesses such as automobiles and health in the future.
The era of Internet giants desperately doing addition is over, and more and more giants will be seen in the future giving up the outstretched hand. In the short term, the market value of Internet giants may be affected to a certain extent; but focus on the main business, make the business not only bigger but also stronger, and provide better services for consumers. In the long run, it may not be a bad thing for both platforms and consumers.