Wen Chun Gongzi
The famous American investment guru Munger has admitted to overestimating Alibaba's e-commerce, and you are still unwilling to admit the facts?
Munger said he initially bought the stake because he was attracted by Alibaba's leadership in the internet market
（I got charmed by the idea of their position in the Chinese internet.）
I didn't stop to realize that it was still a retailer
（ I didn't stop to realize they're still a retailer.）
It's a competitive business, and the internet is not a piece of cake for everyone
There are three gold mines in the Internet! One is Internet social networking, the second is Internet search, and the third is Internet e-commerce! Judging from the current results, Internet e-commerce is not necessarily a good business.
In the past, China's e-commerce industry mainly had the "two-person turn" opened by Ali and JD.com! But with the advent of Pinduoduo, China's e-commerce industry has entered the stage of "three countries competing for hegemony".
The rise of Pinduoduo is not enough, and now even a number of short video platforms are vigorously developing e-commerce. It can be seen that e-commerce is not only a non-blue ocean, for various e-commerce companies, this is a "red Haiti" that has to be faced for a long time in the future!
The e-commerce industry needs to constantly innovate and adapt to market changes to maintain a competitive edge. Judging from Ali's recent financial reports, the discourse power of Ali's e-commerce has gradually declined, which is an indisputable fact!
How do you think of Alibaba's latest earnings report?
Recently, Alibaba released its latest financial results, including the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023 (first quarter of 2023) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, as well as the full-year financial report for the past fiscal year.
Alibaba's revenue in the fourth quarter (quarter ended March) was RMB208.20 billion, up 2% year-on-year; Adjusted EBITDA was RMB32.12 billion, up 37% year-on-year. Adjusted net profit was RMB27.38 billion, up 38% year-on-year. Adjusted revenue per ADS was RMB10.71, compared to RMB7.95 in the same period last year.
Chun Gongzi looked at it, many people are saying that Ali's financial report is very good, isn't this talking nonsense with open eyes? As a media or self-media, we only say good things, and we can't say bad things?
Chun Gongzi said before that interpreting Ali's company is nothing more than looking at the two major sectors of Ali's e-commerce and Ali's cloud computing.
First of all, let's talk about Alibaba's e-commerce, Ali's total revenue in the first quarter was 208.2 billion yuan, China's retail commercial revenue was 136.1 billion yuan, down 3% year-on-year, and customer management revenue was 60.27 billion yuan, down 5% year-on-year!
The above data shows that the voice of Ali's e-commerce has declined year by year, and Alibaba's Taojie e-commerce revenue has grown negatively for four consecutive quarters.
After the epidemic ended, Tencent relied on its gaming and advertising business, and Baidu relied on integrated AI solutions and advertising to maintain growth, while Alibaba's core business declined.
Ali's own explanation is the epidemic and the Spring Festival, but the capital market does not think so! After Ali's earnings report was issued, Ali's stock price immediately plummeted! The capital market believes that the pattern of China's e-commerce industry has changed, and under the siege of a number of e-commerce players, Ali's e-commerce has not produced substantial results in recent years.
Alibaba's e-commerce is the "lifeblood" business of Ali Group! Don't look at Ali now has so many new businesses, in fact, many new businesses are still in the stage of losing money, to put it bluntly, it is relying on Ali's e-commerce blood transfusion. Why is Alibaba pushing its subsidiaries to go public now? To put it bluntly, I don't want Ali e-commerce to continue to transfuse blood for them, and I have to let them go public and raise their own financing, which we will say below!
After briefly talking about Alibaba's e-commerce, let's take a look at Ali's cloud computing. Although Alibaba Cloud has achieved profitability, this time the cloud computing has lost negative growth for the first time. Note that this is negative growth from a base of only 12% growth in the same period last year.
The reason why Alibaba Cloud now has an advantage is that Alibaba Cloud started early and invested heavily in R&D. But with the efforts of Tencent, Baidu, Huawei and the three major operators in cloud computing, how long Aliyun's advantages can lead is unknown!
To put it bluntly, Alibaba's e-commerce and cloud computing have little room for growth in the future! To put it seriously, if Alibaba's e-commerce and cloud computing cannot continue to grow or maintain their advantages in the future, then how much room can Alibaba's other money-losing businesses have for imagination?
Will Ali change for the better?
Alibaba's organizational structure was changed to "1+6+N", and in addition to the six major business groups, it also includes many business companies such as Freshippo, Fliggy, Pingtouge, Ali Health, RT-Mart, and Yintai.
With the approval of the board of directors of Alibaba Group, Cloud Intelligence Group will move from Alibaba Group to complete spin-off and independent listing, Cainiao and Hema will launch listing plans, and Alibaba International Digital Business Group will launch external financing.
Today, Alibaba Cloud, Cainiao, and Hema have all been confirmed to go public, and there may be more business groups or companies listed in the future, and the Alibaba Group horse racing plan has been launched!
Among the above Alibaba subsidiaries, Alibaba Cloud, Cainiao and Hema are currently the most active in listing.
In 2022, the size of China's cloud computing market will be about 198.34 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 289 billion yuan by the end of 2025. The cloud computing industry investment and financing data ushered in an explosion in 2020, and many tracks such as hybrid cloud, edge cloud, and CDN continued to grow.
Let's put it this way, the reason why Alibaba Cloud is in a hurry to go public, on the one hand, is because Aliyun's e-commerce company no longer gives Alibaba Cloud financial support, and on the other hand, because Alibaba Cloud has the conditions for listing, it must compete for the "first share" of domestic cloud computing!
This year is the tenth year of the establishment of Cainiao Alliance, the data shows that Cainiao's revenue in the quarter increased by 18% year-on-year to 13.619 billion yuan, and throughout the fiscal year, Cainiao achieved a revenue growth rate of 21%, gradually becoming a noteworthy engine behind Alibaba's performance growth.
After rivals such as JD Logistics and SF Express became listed companies, Cainiao is also accelerating the pace of listing, and previously absorbed the autonomous driving team of Ali Damo Academy, which is to better tell stories to the capital market.
In addition to Alibaba Cloud and Cainiao about to go public, Hema that has been losing money for many years cannot hold back. If you ask Chungongzi what he thinks about the listing of Cainiao, Alibaba Cloud and Freshippo, Chungongzi can only say that he is not optimistic, because it is not a "scarce species" for the capital market!
Will Alibaba treat Ali shareholders well from now on?
If we divide the Chinese Internet into factions, one is called Tencent, and the other is Ali!
Many netizens think that Tencent's department is a bully, and Ali is a faction of its own! In fact, from the perspective of shareholders who return the company, Tencent is several notches stronger than Alibaba.
Tencent stock is known as the king of Chinese stocks, not only because of Tencent's huge increase in market value, but also because Tencent's stock has basically not been used by investors, but investors have also obtained huge returns from investing in Tencent.
Alibaba's values are customer first, employee second, shareholder third! Jack Ma has long told everyone that Ali has never attached great importance to the interests of shareholders, and how much income do you expect to earn by investing in Ali?
Speaking of which, I have to mention a past when Alibaba's B2B business was listed in Hong Kong. On November 20, 2007, Alibaba's B2B business was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at an issue price of HK$13.5 per share. On the same day, Alibaba's share price soared to HK$39, a record high.
At that time, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange required "equal rights and equal rights", and Alibaba's "partnership system" and "dual-class share structure" did not meet this requirement, so it was forced to delist from Hong Kong.
If it does not meet the rules, why was it possible to go public before? If you want to delist from Hong Kong, why not protect the minority shareholders who have invested in Alibaba? For this small history, Lin Yuan, a famous Chinese investor, always mentions it, believing that Alibaba is a company with no responsibility to shareholders.
A few years ago, Ma Yun took advantage of Ali's stock price to cash out wildly, and in recent years, Son Masayoshi has also liquidated his holdings in Ali. This has led to long-term pressure on Ali's stock price, leaving only a large number of Alibaba's minority shareholders messy in the wind!
Conclusion: Friends who are familiar with Chungongzi know that Chungongzi has long believed that Ali has signs of decline, and there is no other reason, because the competition in the domestic e-commerce industry is too fierce, once the main business cannot be repaired or continues to decline, other businesses will eventually become "waterless sources"! This is also why Ali is in a hurry to break up a number of listed companies.
Of course, if Alibaba Cloud, Cainiao, and Hema are successfully listed, Alibaba may become the company with the highest market value among domestic listed companies, but what is there to be happy about?
For consumers, what they care about is whether Alibaba's e-commerce really saves money for consumers? For shareholders, can Alibaba's e-commerce really bring them good investment returns? I don't know what you guys think?