Who is the strongest Internet giant Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu?

Baidu (the world's largest Chinese search engine)

If there is a company in China that can compete with Tencent as the king of the Internet in China, it must be Baidu. Baidu's audience is even wider and deeper than Tencent. As long as China netizens use Baidu, they use it frequently. As the absolute leader of domestic search engines, Baidu is very sticky to customers. Relying on the search platform, Baidu can expand into any field of the Internet like Tencent, and can constantly explore new profit models. Google is the best example.

But relatively speaking, Tencent's adhesion to customers is stronger and more stable than Baidu. Tencent customers switch to instant messaging providers, and the original communication network will be invalid, so the barriers to switching are much higher than Baidu. At the same time, because Tencent's active customers are mostly young people, they have a high degree of acceptance and interest in new functions and use them frequently. This customer structure makes it easier for Tencent to expand new Internet value-added services than Baidu, and Baidu's advantage lies in the commercial field.

Baidu's strong brand effect makes it difficult for new entrants to invade. Baidu's biggest competitor may be Google. Due to the complexity of Chinese characters and the profoundness of China culture, Google, as an outsider, will encounter certain obstacles in localization, so it is difficult to shake Baidu's position in the short to medium term. The cultural barriers of multinational giants can also be seen when internet giants in other fields have failed. Baidu will remain the leader of Internet in China for a long time.

The following is my analysis of Tencent and Alibaba two years ago:

Tencent Holdings

Tencent Holdings, as the monopoly giant of instant messaging in China, occupies an absolute monopoly position in the field of instant messaging. Users include Chinese from Chinese mainland, Taiwan Province Province, Hongkong, Macau and overseas, with an active account of 260 million (the number of netizens in China is only 65,438+62 million), with a market share of 79. 1%, and the second MSN is only 13.4%. Moreover, Tencent's market share is still increasing, but the market share of multinational giant MSN is shrinking. It can be seen how powerful Tencent's monopoly position is. It is not an exaggeration to describe Tencent as "China's instant messaging Microsoft".

Instant messaging in the virtual world of the network is similar to the telephone in reality, with high frequency of use and wide popularity. There is obvious binding between users, just like changing phone numbers, changing QQ numbers will cause a lot of trouble. At the same time, unlike mobile communication and telephone, Tencent is not interconnected with other competitors, so if you choose other suppliers, it means that you can't reach all Tencent users. Imagine what would happen if Unicom users could not call mobile users? Therefore, Tencent has set a high conversion barrier, and it is difficult for new entrants to snatch Tencent users. For competitors, the scale of Tencent is also a barrier. Because Tencent has the largest number of instant messaging users, new users will consider convenience and availability when choosing service providers, and naturally give priority to Tencent, thus forming the Matthew effect. Tencent is getting stronger and stronger, and its monopoly position is becoming more and more stable. Multinational giants MSN and Yahoo! Tencent is not threatened at all, and it is even more difficult for other potential domestic competitors to shake its monopoly position.

Tencent monopolizes instant messaging users, and instant messaging cannot generate high income. To get higher profits, we must rely on QQ platform to continuously expand new business and turn monopoly resources into income and profits. After consolidating its monopoly position, Tencent began to attack many other businesses, including Internet value-added services, mobile communication value-added services, advertising and other fields. With its huge monopoly resources, Tencent is invincible in new businesses such as online games, short messages and auctions. In just a few years, Tencent has developed from a simple instant messaging service provider to a network giant integrating casual games, information portal and search.

Tencent's financial data in recent years are as follows:

The reporting periods are 65438+February 2003, 65438+February 2004, 65438+February 2005 and 65438+February 2006.

The turnover is 734957 1, 143533 1, 4263952,800,441.

The profit before tax is 338,209,463,653,437,055, 1,1,6,771.

The net profit is 322, 1 96,4465,438+0,19485,362,1063,800.

Return on net assets (%)19.317.39 32.01

Operating profit rate (%) 40.2133.9641.54

The gross profit rate is over 70%, the net profit rate is over 30% (equivalent to Maotai), and the net profit shows a steady upward trend. In 2006, it rose by more than 65,438+000%, and the return on net assets remained above 65,438+07%, reaching 32,065,438+0% in 2006, and the financial situation was good.

Although Tencent has a strong monopoly position, as an Internet industry, it still has higher risks and higher industry volatility than traditional monopoly enterprises.

1. Because Tencent's main profit source is not monopolistic instant messaging service, QQ platform only provides rich customer resources and does not directly bring huge profits. The truly profitable parts are online games, short messages, advertisements and other highly competitive fields. Although Tencent has huge customer resources and certain advantages in these fields, it has not yet reached a monopoly position, and the competition in these fields has been fierce. Whether Tencent can continue to gain a leading edge in these areas is uncertain.

2. Tencent's stable monopoly position in the field of instant messaging is formed by Tencent's refusal to connect. If the government forces interconnection according to the Anti-Monopoly Law, Tencent's monopoly position will be challenged. At this stage, its main competitors MSN and Yahoo! Already interconnected, Tencent was sued by competitors for monopoly and unfair competition. Tencent's achievements in various fields are obtained through compulsory bundling of related software. If it is ruled that there is monopoly and unfair competition, unbundling will have a great impact on Tencent's development.

3. Excessive squeezing of competitors has made Tencent a "public enemy" and its image is at a disadvantage in the industry.

4. Spam and account theft are serious.

5. There will be a new business model to replace QQ in the future.

6. The income growth rate fluctuates greatly.

Tencent's monopoly and persistence in users make it different from any other Internet company. With the rapid growth of the number of netizens in China and the improvement of the QQ application rate of the new generation of netizens, Tencent's customer resources will also grow rapidly. At the same time, with the increasing application of the Internet, more and more value-added services will inevitably be produced, and Tencent still has broad room for growth in the future.

Alibaba

Alibaba has become the world's largest B2B enterprise, and also an oligarch in China's B2B industry. Its operating income accounts for more than 50% of the domestic market share, while global sources, the second place, has only 20%. According to the calculation of registered users, Alibaba is unmatched, reaching more than 20 million, while the second-place HC information is only 3 million, corresponding to HC's operating income is less than one tenth of Alibaba. Global sources has only 650,000 registered users, aiming at high-end customers. China Chemical Network, China Clothing Network, Global Hardware Network and other small and medium-sized websites and vertical websites are far behind, and their monopoly position is detached.

The most important reason why Alibaba can grow into the king of B2B in the world is that China is becoming a global manufacturing center and purchasing center, with the largest number of product suppliers and buyers in the world. Most of these enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises, and B2B websites provide them with efficient and low-cost marketing channels. Ma Yun discovered this business opportunity with great foresight and seized it tightly. Matthew effect will make Alibaba's members grow faster and gain more market share, and the first law of the Internet will make Alibaba live more tastefully.

The main customers of B 2 B websites are small and medium-sized enterprises, who are used to enjoying free lunches online. At present, most registrants are reluctant to buy paid services, and most domestic B 2 B websites, including HC Information, are in a state of burning money and losing money. B 2 B's revenue model is mainly based on membership fees and advertising fees. Because free customers can also publish, search information and use some basic service functions, most small and medium-sized enterprises choose free services for cost reasons, and the proportion of paid members is generally only about 10%. The difficulty of industry profit, Alibaba's far-ahead advantage and good financial situation will make it difficult for other B2B websites to shake Alibaba's leading position.

The number of small and medium-sized enterprises in China continues to increase. At present, the proportion of using the third-party B2B e-commerce platform is less than 30%, and this proportion shows a trend of rapid improvement, which means that more and more SMEs will choose this service in the future. At the same time, with the development of the Internet, paid services will be more and more accepted by users, and the emergence of more high-value B2B value-added products will also make customers more willing to buy paid services, which is illustrated by the rapid growth of registered and paid members of Alibaba in recent years. Membership fees bring stable cash flow to Alibaba.

Ma Yun often appears in various high-profile media and is the spokesperson of Alibaba. His eloquence and frequent exposure have become the best marketing advertisements of Alibaba. Alibaba's internationalization strategy is one of its advantages, and two foreign shareholders, Yahoo and Softbank, have played a certain role in the internationalization strategy. Because foreign customers are more accustomed to using Alibaba, which has a high degree of internationalization, they rarely use Chinese for search. Recently, Alibaba's domestic and overseas expansion has begun, and it will accelerate its expansion after listing. There is no doubt that Alibaba has a rapid growth in the short to medium term and a broad market growth space in the long term.

Alibaba's main data:

Operating income (100 million) profit (100 million) registered users (10,000) paid members (10,000)

2004 3.59 600 7.7

2005 7.38 0.7 1 100 14. 1

2006 13.63 2. 19 1980 2 1.9

The first half of 2007 9.57 6.22 (forecast) 2460 25.5

Alibaba has no peace of mind, on the contrary, it will face great challenges in the long run. Compared with Alibaba's corporate users, Tencent's users are mostly individual consumers, and the characteristics of consumer brands are more obvious. Alibaba users' website brand loyalty is lower than that of Tencent. Alibaba's huge scale has formed certain barriers in the B2B market segment, but it does not exclude customers.