"The byte is no longer beating, the vibrato is shaking"
After Zhang Yiming retired, Byte changed its name
On May 20, 2021, on such a romantic day, ByteDance ushered in a huge earthquake.
Founder Zhang Yiming wrote in an internal letter, "I decided to step down as CEO and put down my daily management work. Zhang Yiming, who was born in 1983, was only 38 years old at the time.
Today, nearly a year after Zhang Yiming left office, a more unexpected thing has happened.
ByteDance changed its name.
According to previous media reports, ByteDance (Hong Kong) Limited has changed its name to Douyin Group (Hong Kong) Limited, effective May 6, 2022.
In addition, several other companies under ByteDance have also changed their names. According to the Tianyancha APP, ByteDance Co., Ltd. was renamed Douyin Co., Ltd. According to the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., Ltd. was renamed Beijing Douyin Information Service Co., Ltd.
However, in addition to the main company's rename to Douyin, the remaining 35 core enterprises have not changed, such as the affiliates of today's headlines still maintain their original names.
How to say it, as an ordinary person, I have once again witnessed history.
But such a major change can't help but arouse people's reverie, what does ByteDance really want to do, what does Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo want to do?
For a time, there were many opinions, especially "Byte will be listed" the loudest voice, but before the media has communicated and inquired, for the listing rumors, ByteDance responded: no comment. It can be said that until all the dust settles, the rumors of the listing have not been confirmed.
When querying various companies, a coincidence happened.
According to a query on the website of the Hong Kong Companies Registry, ByteDance (Hong Kong) Limited was established on 8 May 2012, which is exactly 10 years ago.
Ten years ago, when ByteDance was just founded, Zhang Yiming only had the trump card of today's headlines in his hand, and he would never have thought that ten years later, what really provoked the company's beam was a short video APP.
An era has come to an end, and the "cosmic bar" led by Zhang Yiming has long changed.
The byte could not jump, and the vibrato carried the girder
"Grass snake gray line, thousands of miles". Behind the seemingly huge changes, there are already countless clues lurking.
From the moment Zhang Yiming announced his retirement in May last year, Byte entered a new stage of development. Unlike ByteDance, which is constantly expanding its boundaries under the leadership of Zhang Yiming, it entered the era of Liang Rubo, and ByteDance entered an orderly contraction period.
In the internal letter announcing his retirement, Zhang Yiming revealed that the specific handover work will be completed by the end of 2021. However, in the half a year of the handover work, Liang Rubo's contraction war had already begun.
According to incomplete statistics, in the second half of 2021, Byte was reported by the media as many as 4 rounds of layoffs, and in early August, there was news that Byte had drastically cut off the education section. In November, Byte Vigorous Education once again reported a major layoff, and Byte completely abandoned primary and secondary school discipline training;
In October, Byte reported that the commercialization team made a major adjustment, "all major direct sales centers and calls must be cut by 30% to 70%." "Byte's response does have layoffs, but it is a normal business adjustment of the company;
In November, byte game platform Ohayoo was exposed to lay off 79 people. In December, Byte abolished the Talent Development Center.
In addition to direct layoffs, one of the more important changes is business consolidation.
At the beginning of November last year, Liang Rubo set up six major sections, reorganized the major business lines of Byte, and decided to give full play to the synergy between businesses and achieve business focus.
The most important change is the merger of Today's Headlines and Watermelon Video, the two previous head products, into the Douyin business unit. It can be said that since then, Douyin has officially taken over today's headlines and become the trump card of ByteDance.
After such a large-scale integration operation and cost reduction and efficiency increase, Zhang Yiming's "Jiangshan" was guarded by his roommate Liang Rubo. In January this year, some sources revealed that ByteDance's annual revenue in 2021 was about 58 billion US dollars, an increase of 70% year-on-year, and according to the latest US dollar exchange rate, it was equivalent to about 389.3 billion yuan.
According to previous media reports, in 2020, ByteDance's advertising revenue accounted for 77% of revenue, of which the advertising revenue of the single Douyin platform accounted for 60%, and the advertising revenue of today's headlines accounted for only 20%.
After the integration of Liang Rubo, the Douyin business unit, which includes Douyin, Today's Headlines and Watermelon Video, will smoothly account for more than 80% of advertising revenue and become the nuclear engine of this aircraft carrier.
In addition, in the context of the overall revenue slowdown of ByteDance, Douyin e-commerce is still expanding rapidly, with a growth rate of 300% in 2020, according to previous media reports, under the wide-caliber statistics in 2021, the annual GMV of Douyin e-commerce has reached 1,000 billion.
It can be said that in the year of Zhang Yiming's retirement, ByteDance is moving towards another growth curve, but the gradual focus of the business line still makes the advantages of Douyin continue to stand out, after the integration of today's headlines and watermelon videos, the Douyin department has deservedly shouldered the beam of bytes.
Screenshot of TikTok Mall
The data shows that before Zhang Yiming retired, the average daily activity of the whole platform of Douyin had exceeded 600 million. At present, Douyin e-commerce is still constantly consolidating the moat, creating a closed loop of e-commerce, and actively learning advanced experience from large factories such as Ali Jingdong. For example, the layout of shelf malls, the exploration of self-operated e-commerce models and so on.
In general, after Zhang Yiming retired, ByteDance has indeed changed, from the original APP factory to a precision engine powered by douyin.
Ten years ago, there was no vibrato; ten years later, vibrato became king. Changing the name to Vibrato is also an unexpected and reasonable thing.
An era has passed, an era has come
In the past year, the historic moments of the Internet circle have really been one after another.
As ordinary people, we have nothing to do day by day, patronizing and witnessing history.
First, several bigwigs in the e-commerce circle have announced their abdication, in March 2021, Pinduoduo Huang Zheng announced his retirement; in May, Zhang Yiming stepped down as CEO; in April this year, Liu Qiangdong stepped down as CEO of JD.com; at the end of April, Ali's second-generation leader Daniel Zhang stepped down as chairman of Taobao.
In addition to the departure of the big guys, the strategies and positions of several e-commerce giants have also undergone historic changes.
First of all, Ali, in December last year, the newly appointed Dai Shan decided to merge Taobao and Tmall into one; in February this year, Tmall began to emulate JD.com and explore a self-operated model.
Speaking of JD.com, as the second oldest in the millennium, the total revenue in the past year surpassed Ali, and the overall growth was very stable; some time ago, JD.com's "suicide" one-way logistics once again created the history of the express delivery industry.
There is also Pinduoduo, after Huang Zheng retired, Pinduoduo under Chen Lei's rule moved from high growth to high profit revenue, and won a shocking profit growth curve.
In addition, the rise speed of the two giants of live e-commerce is even more dizzying. But not long after the heat, a tax audit storm swept in, and the live e-commerce went from hot to calm, not more than two years.
Looking back at the past year, e-commerce companies are experiencing an era of great changes.
Even before many people are aware of these changes, they have been abandoned. For example, the "graduation tide" that swept the entire Internet industry some time ago.
Because when the times change, if you don't change, the times will abandon you.
And the change in bytes can be said to be unexpected and reasonable. Choosing to change the name is actually byte's initiative in this era of great changes. After the name change, the byte no longer jumped, and the vibrato began to shake.
In an internal letter a year ago, Zhang Yiming wrote: "We have the privilege of seizing the opportunity of the development of the times, innovating and practicing on mobile and video based on machine learning technology, and achieving some achievements." ”
How humble this statement is, in Zhang Yiming's eyes, the explosion of vibrato is like the "pig on the wind outlet" in Lei Jun's mouth.
But ByteDance is obviously not a pig, Zhang Yiming is not Lei Jun, in the 10th anniversary of its establishment, ByteDance chose to change its name, ByteDance, such a name full of technical genes was replaced, which is sighing and also indicates the end of a technological era.
Video screenshot: Qian Yingyi dialogue Zhang Yiming
Because even Zhang Yiming believes that in the past few years, he has been "eating the old" from a technical background, and has not paid too much attention to cutting-edge changes, because in this era, "everyone is more likely to pay attention to changes in business models and update brand channels, and rarely notice that technological changes are already brewing." ”
Therefore, Zhang Yiming, who retired for one year, decided to study and experience various new things for a period of ten years. As a technology-driven company, byte after the name change, it will also usher in change in the new decade.
However, before the advent of new technological changes, Douyin, which gathered all the energy of Byte, is leading Byte to achieve commercial success.
In the future, there may be a more shocking ByteDance, or a more shocking vibrato.
Author: Old Electric