"Harbor Business Observer", Li Lei
There is no lowest price, only lower prices, in the consumer market, an era of low prices has come.
In the early morning of December 1, U.S. stocks**, Pinduoduo (PDD.)NASDAQ)** has a market capitalization that surpasses Alibaba (BABA.).NASDAQ), becoming the largest stock in the U.S. and China concept stocks by market capitalization.
As of now, Pinduoduo has a market capitalization of 1958$8.7 billion, Alibaba market capitalization 19070.3 billion US dollars, JD.com's market capitalization is 431$6.1 billion.
Coupled with Ma Yun's recent congratulations on Pinduoduo, the city is full of "Pinduoduo".
Ali employees recently posted on the intranet: "I can't sleep at the moment, and I don't dare to think that the market value of Pinduoduo has come directly to 185.5 billion US dollars, compared with our 194.3 billion, the gap is only 8 billion, which is really shocking." That inconspicuous slash is about to become a big brother. I didn't want to send out this post without content, but after thinking about it, I still left this post as a memo and as my own encouragement. I look forward to working hard with the group brothers to contribute bit by bit and surpass it back. ”
After seeing it, Ma Yun replied to the post and expressed his blessings to Pinduoduo: "I want to congratulate PDD on its decision-making, implementation and efforts in the past few years. ”
Ma Yun also said: "I firmly believe that Ali will change, Ali will change." All great companies are born in the winter. The era of AI e-commerce has just begun, and it is both an opportunity and a challenge for everyone. "No one has ever been a bull, but an organization that can reform for the sake of tomorrow and tomorrow, and who is willing to pay any price and sacrifice, is respectable. Back to our mission and vision, Ali people, come on!”
Pinduoduo was founded in 2015, less than ten years, surpassing Alibaba, which was founded in 1999 and was once a pioneer and hegemon in China's e-commerce field.
Pinduoduo's most direct attack is Ali's ** and Tmall, the latter is also the focus of Ali's continuous change in recent years.
Go back in time,Once upon a time, Pinduoduo, which had the lowest price on the whole network with low prices, stall prices, slashes, and questionable quality, chose the route of "rural encircling the city" from the very beginning.
In the first few years, Pinduoduo was undoubtedly an unpopular platform spurned by urban white-collar workers, but it became the spokesperson of the rural market and the favorite of young people in small towns.
Once, the whole village "fight a knife", low-cost household goods, but also far lower market price of clothing and clothing, Pinduoduo quickly from the countryside to the city market.
In the process of fighting urban warfare, Pinduoduo was the first practitioner to propose a "10 billion subsidy", and it is guaranteed that it will also be able to harvest the hearts of the white-collar class. For the same Apple mobile phone, Pinduoduo's subsidized price is the lowest price on the whole network, and a similar strategy has quickly improved Pinduoduo's quality, reputation and popularity.
Therefore, even the urban middle class, which once looked down on Pinduoduo, was soon deeply captured and worshipped.
In the process of Pinduoduo's rapid strengthening and expansion, Ali and JD.com are undoubtedly under great pressure. However, under the attack of the two giants, Pinduoduo is still alive and well, obviously not by luck, but by differentiated low prices.
Whether you like Pinduoduo or not, Pinduoduo's low-price genes, low-price impression and low-price strategy are stronger than Ali and JD.com.
The transcendence of today's market value does highlight the popularity and sustainability of Pinduoduo in the "low-price era".
To a certain extent, the organizational structure adjustment of Alibaba and JD.com this year, as well as the change of marketing strategy, are all related to Pinduoduo.
In May this year, Ma Yun said in an internal communication meeting that the future development of Tmall should be to return, return to users, and return to the Internet. He also took Nokia and Kodak as examples, believing that the competitive situation facing Tmall is now very severe, and it has come time to change.
The change is also reflected in another brand of Alibaba, Hema Xiansheng. On October 13, Hema launched the biggest change in its 8-year history, announcing that more than 5,000 preferred products in Hema fresh stores began to reduce prices, and dairy products, cleaning and care products and other categories of goods set "offline exclusive prices", * generally dropped by 20%.
Also in May, Xu Lei, who had been the CEO of Jingdong Group for about a year, announced his resignation. And in November 2022, Liu Qiangdong even proposed that "Jingdong is losing its best advantage". In March 2023, the strong boss also opened the "10 billion subsidy", and Pinduoduo's subsidy burning model was directly moved.
The big brothers began to Xi learn from the young Pinduoduo, and the two giants in the field of live broadcast e-commerce, Douyin and Kuaishou, also joined the battle. This is an era of great change, especially for e-commerce, so much so that the strategies of all platforms on Singles' Day this year are finally competing for low prices.
In the large-scale consumption pattern of slowing down increment and limited stock, there is no longer the original intention to capture consumers more than real low prices.
On the eve of Pinduoduo's market capitalization surpassing Alibaba, most well-known investment banks generally expressed their optimism about Pinduoduo.
On the eve of Singles' Day, Citibank believes that while Pinduoduo does not usually emphasize its participation in the event, it believes that in the context of consumption downgrades, the company will achieve higher growth around its "billion dollar subsidies" and "annual price reduction list" activities. Sales during Singles' Day are expected to grow by around 20%, while ** and JD.com are expected to increase by less than 10%.
According to the financial report for the third quarter of this year, Pinduoduo achieved revenue of 688400 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 94%, the market expectation of 5487.2 billion yuan.
CITIC** believes that Pinduoduo's revenue and profit have significantly exceeded market expectations, showing strong growth potential and profitability. During the period, the GMV and monetization of the main website continued to grow, and the fee side improved significantlyTemu is expanding at a high speed and the loss rate is well controlled. Pinduoduo's domestic main website business profitability has brought stable support to the company's valuation, and the rapid growth of cross-border business is expected to boost the valuation potential, raising the target price to $161, maintaining the "**" rating.
On November 30, Macquarie raised Pinduoduo's FY2023-25 adjusted earnings per share to reflect a strong business outlook, and raised its price target by 51% to $190 from $126, with an "outperform" rating.
At the same time, Morgan Stanley also believes that in the face of Chinese consumers' increasing sensitivity to cost performancePinduoduo's positioning is the most advantageous, because Pinduoduo has a deep-rooted concept of "low price" in the hearts of consumers, and it is difficult for peers to subvert this concept.
Da Mo expects that Pinduoduo will continue to seize market share in China's e-commerce market thanks to good business models and changes in consumer behavior, and the market has not yet reflected in the ** of its cross-border e-commerce business Temu, so it gives Pinduoduo a target price of $181 and an "overweight" rating.
An era of e-commerce wars that belong to Pinduoduo's "competition for low prices" has begun. (Produced by Harbour Finance).