This article**: Times Weekly Author: Guo Meiting.
The only constant is change itself", Ali (baba.).nasdaq；09988.HK) is a tried-and-true golden rule in the Internet world.
In 2023, major Internet companies seem to have collectively entered a "period of organizational structure adjustment". In March, Alibaba launched the biggest change in the pattern since its establishment 24 years ago, splitting and reorganizing Alibaba to form six major business groups and a number of business companies, namely the "1+6+N" structureSince 2023, a number of Tencent (0700HK) products are out of service, including Tencent's ** audio platform Penguin FM, Tencent Now Live, Tencent To-Do, game live streaming platform Penguin Esports, news reading product Highlights Express, etc.;And ByteDance has also successively exposed the news of department adjustment and optimization from the beginning of 2023......
*, change the commander, break the wrist of the strong man, focus on the main business, many Internet companies or diligently prune branches, or fertilize and water, waiting for the next year's flowering and fruiting.
Outside the company, the market has made its first judgment on the company's exam papers handed in in the past year. The market value ranking battle of the top echelon manufacturers ushered in a historic mutation at the end of the year. After the release of the third-quarter earnings report, Pinduoduo (PDDNASDAQ) surpassed Ali in one fell swoop in terms of market capitalization and became the No. 1 in terms of value in the United States and China. Although Byte has not yet been listed, according to data disclosed by foreign media, its revenue and revenue growth rate are close to or even exceed Tencent, and it is on par with Meta. The status of the old big factory is no longer stable under the watchful eye of the latecomers.
In 2024, will the war continue?What kind of fight will we usher in?
In the adjustment and change of all major factories in 2023, Ali occupies the absolute "C position".
In March, Alibaba launched the largest organizational change in 24 years, splitting an Alibaba Group into "1+6+N": 1 holding group, 6 business groups and N business companies.
In May, Alibaba announced the list of board members of all business groups, as well as the listing and financing plans of some business groups. Since then, Hema, Cloud, Cainiao and other businesses have revealed their listing schedules.
In November, Ali suddenly announced that it would no longer promote the complete spin-off of the Cloud Intelligence Group in view of various uncertainties. At the same time, Freshippo's IPO plans were suspended.
With such a drastic change, Ali may be trying to concentrate on curing the "big business disease". This is also a common problem that many large enterprises may suffer from, as the enterprise scale, business, and the number of teams become large, the "body" will gradually become bloated, resulting in slow decision-making, multiple leaders, large and complex personnel, and low efficiency.
In fact, not only Alibaba, "* agility" and "efficiency" are the main themes of most large manufacturers in 2023. Behind this is also a layer of helplessness that the traffic dividend of the big environment has faded and has to change. An employee of a large factory admitted to a reporter from Times Weekly that in 2023, enterprises will be affected by the market environment, market competition will be fierce, revenue pressure will increase, and it will be more difficult to improve year-on-year than before.
Companies have become more margin-oriented, market-focused ROI (return on investment), reduced marketing expenses, and streamlined staffing. Recalling the work of the past year, the employees of the above-mentioned large factories sighed.
The Times reporter sorted out the business adjustments made by major Internet companies in 2023 and found that many money-burning projects such as the metaverse, VR, and XR have been stopped.
In February, Tencent disbanded part of the XR (mixed reality) team, and the more than 300 employees in the department only had a two-month buffer period to look for internal or external opportunities.
ByteDance also has the determination to "break the wrist of a strong man". Towards the end of the year, PICO, the VR department of ByteDance, first announced layoffs and adjusted the organizational structure, and then the subsidiary Mutong Technology also spread the news that it was **, and the big layoffs in the game department shook the industry.
In addition, in August, iQiyi (IQo.NASDAQ), a VR company under Dream Bloom Technology***, was exposed to business shutdown, owed more than 100 employees salaries, and official channel products were all off the shelves.
Source: Picture Worm Creative
At the same time, marginal businesses that have not achieved results have also been "stopped in time". For example, in March, Tencent announced that it would take off the Phantom Core app, a digital collection platform. In the following months, Penguin FM, Tencent To-Do, and NOW Live announced that they would cease operations. In September, Tencent announced the gradual closure of K12 online schools, Tencent classrooms and other first-class education C-end businesses, focusing on B-end businesses.
In addition, Kuaishou (01024.)HK) stopped the operation of its ** information app Kuaikan at the beginning of the year;Meituan (03690.)HK) announced that it will abandon its self-operated taxi and fully switch to an aggregation modelNetEase (09999.)hk；ntes.NASDAQ) ceased operation of the knowledge highway on the short** platform;Xiaohongshu ceased operations of Little Oasis;JD.com (09618.)hk；jd.NASDAQ) in Indonesia and Thailand have discontinued services.
Pruning and pruning leaves and strengthening the trunk are the homework that major Internet manufacturers have made great efforts to do in the past year, in order to lay the foundation for intensive cultivation in the coming year.
Change of coach
Under the great change, it is usually accompanied by a personnel reshuffle.
In 2023, many "veterans" of large factories who lived in seclusion behind the scenes many years ago will return to the stage and show their powers.
During the critical period of Ali's major adjustment, according to the "LatePost" report, Ali founder Ma Yun appeared in front of the stage in late May and pointed out three directions for Taotian Group: return to **, return to users, and return to the Internet.
After announcing the "one split six", Ali's "Eighteen Arhats", who had retreated to the second line, returned to the front line to charge. Tsai Chongxin, Peng Lei, Wu Yongming, Tong Wenhong and others have returned, among which Tsai Chongxin took over as chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba Group, and Wu Yongming served as CEO. Daniel Zhang faded out of the power center, and Wu Yongming, who originally planned to serve full-time as the chairman and CEO of Cloud Intelligence Group, was also replaced by Wu Yongming.
On December 20, Alibaba announced that Wu Yongming, chairman of Taotian Group, is also the CEO of Taotian Group. Dai Shan, former CEO of Taotian Group, will assist in the establishment of Alibaba Group's asset management company.
Similar to Alibaba, JD.com has also ushered in the return of its founder. At the end of 2022, Liu Qiangdong, who had not appeared in public for a long time, suddenly became active and was exposed to speak out on the intranet many times.
In February 2023, it was reported that Liu Qiangdong officially returned to China to work. In the past year, Liu Qiangdong has led multiple rounds of organizational and business changes, and JD.com has fully returned to the low-price strategy.
On the eve of "618" in 2023, JD.com will change generals. Xu Ran, the former CFO of JD Group, who was born in finance, succeeded Xu Lei as CEO of JD Group, and later in November, Xu Ran replaced Xin Lijun as CEO of JD Retail Group. In addition, Yan Xiaobing, the former head of JD's international business and a veteran of home appliance retail, returned to take charge of JD's innovative retail business.
Source: Picture Worm Creative
Also in the field of e-commerce, another giant, Pinduoduo, has also brought a co-founder from behind the scenes to the forefront. Pinduoduo will grow against the trend in 2023, and its market value will surpass Ali in one fell swoop.
In April, Pinduoduo announced the latest personnel appointments, and Zhao Jiazhen, the group's co-founder, will be appointed as executive director and co-CEO, partnering with Chen Lei, chairman and co-CEO, to jointly manage the company's business.
Zhao Jiazhen is the "old man" of Pinduoduo, during the 8 years of Pinduoduo, he has been on the front line of business, and has successively promoted the development of Pinduoduo's agricultural product chain, Duoduo grocery shopping, and overseas business temu, and is good at fighting tough battles.
"High quality" is the development tone that Zhao Jiazhen has emphasized many times after being promoted to co-CEO, which means that Pinduoduo's focus has begun to shift from speed to quality, and from marketing-driven to R&D-driven.
In addition to this, (09888.)hk；bidu.NASDAQ), the resignation of Jing Kun, CEO of the artificial intelligence brand "Xiaodu", the succession of veteran Li Ying, the replacement of Su Hua as the new "head" by Kuaishou Cheng Yixiao, and the resignation of Chen Liang, senior vice president of Meituan, also caused industry shocks during the year.
According to incomplete statistics, in 2023, more than 20 senior executives at the vice president and above level of the top Internet companies in terms of market value will be adjusted.
The road ahead
The effectiveness of the reform and adjustment in the past year needs to be further tested in the future.
Judging from the current situation, after experiencing a range of cost reduction and efficiency increase, the performance of large manufacturers in the third quarter has gradually picked up. JD.com's third-quarter revenue was the highest, reaching 24769.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17%；Alibaba followed with third-quarter revenue of 2247900 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9%;Tencent Holdings ranked third, with third-quarter revenue of 1,5462.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%.
In terms of market value changes, as of December 29, the market value of Tencent and Alibaba fell by more than 1% compared with the same period last year, and the market value of JD.com and Meituan nearly halvedThe market value of Pinduoduo has almost doubled compared with the same period last year, and the market value of NetEase has risen by two percent.
The market value ranking battle of the top echelon of Internet manufacturers also ushered in a number of historic moments at the end of the year.
Although Tencent is still in the first place, ByteDance is in hot pursuit. Byte's revenue in the first half of the year has surpassed Tencent. According to The Information, Byte's revenue grew by more than 40% in the second quarter to $29 billionRevenue for the first half of the year was about $54 billion. Last year, the company generated $85 billion in annual revenue. Tencent's financial report shows that in the first half of 2023, its revenue will be about 299.2 billion yuan, or about 41.3 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 11%.
Ali was directly overtaken by Pinduoduo, which ushered in a historic moment at the end of November, surpassing Ali in market value and ascending to the throne of market value in the United States and China.
NetEase also came from behind, and on December 13, when the Hong Kong stock market was **, NetEase's market value caught up with Meituan, ranking one place higher, and won the new honor of China's fourth largest Internet company by market capitalization.
What is the way forward?Some of the giants have already revealed the next key waterways.
After nearly a year of turmoil and change, Ali Wu Yongming redrew the strategic map for Alibaba in November: facing the future, Alibaba will have three important priority directions: technology-driven Internet platform business, AI-driven technology business, and global business network.
At the financial report meeting, Wu Yongming announced the first batch of strategic-level innovative businesses - 1688, Xianyu, DingTalk, and Quark. Alibaba proposed that it will continue to invest in these four strategic innovative businesses on a 3-5 year cycle, and maximize the value of these businesses through the operation of independent subsidiaries.
Meituan picked up "Meituan Preferred" again. In November, Meituan Optimal launched the "Group Buy Buy" mini program on WeChat, rekindling the fire of the community's ** war.
Tencent is increasing its resource tilt towards the first number. According to the "Science and Technology Innovation Board**", a number of sources were recently quoted as saying that the WeChat ** account is increasing its resource investment in live streaming, and has adjusted the organizational structure of the two teams of WeChat Pay and ** to open up the two teams to do synergy.
Ma Huateng once pointed out the future commercialization focus of ** at the internal staff meeting at the end of 2022: "Now that ** has taken the first step and has been established, I hope to be closer to the transaction and do a good job in the closed loop of e-commerce." ”
The two or three things of Dachang in 2023 have become a thing of the past, and 2024 has come, and Dachang will set off again after the adjustment, heading for a farther journey and competing for a better seat in the coming year.