Market power of Chinese companies Beijing takes on tech companies

Status: 23.06.2021 12:18 p.m.

Numerous large and valuable tech companies have emerged in China in recent years. The government did its best to promote the rise. In the meantime, however, the feel-good phase is over.

By Steffen Wurzel, ARD-Studio Shanghai A small coffee shop in Shanghai’s Jing’an business district. The shop is popular, a take-away coffee costs the equivalent of two euros, a bargain for this location. The fact that shopkeeper Wu Jialing is still worth it is because he can sell a lot of coffee within a short period of time. Customers pay by smartphone. You simply scan the QR code that is hanging next to the coffee machine. “Paying by app is incredibly fast,” says the shop owner. Serving the cash register, looking for change, washing your hands after contacting the cash register and cash – all of this is eliminated. Correspondingly more sales are possible.

Revolutionized dealing with money

The payment apps Alipay and WeChat-Pay have revolutionized the way money is handled in China within a few years. Instead of struggling with the mostly old-fashioned, complicated and sluggish state banks, most Chinese people now fully rely on the smartphone apps of the domestic fintech companies Ant and Tencent to handle their everyday financial transactions.

It is no longer just about cashless payments. The Alipay app can now also be used to take care of investments, insurance and old-age provision. That too weakens the role of the state banks. “In the area of ​​finance, China has developed from a very backward place to a global pioneer in terms of fintech,” explains Martin Chorzempa of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Not only in the financial technology sector have new, powerful large corporations emerged in the country in recent years. There was also a start-up boom in other tech areas, financed partly by state and partly private venture capital.

Government rethinking corporate relationships

Whether online shopping, social media or delivery services: For years, companies such as Alibaba, Bytedance and Meituan have been able to rely on political and sometimes financial support from the government. But in the past few months the climate has changed, says Duncan Clark, head of the management consultancy BDA in the Chinese capital Beijing. “It seems that the government in China is rethinking its relationship with the big tech companies.”

Obviously, some of the big tech companies have grown too big too quickly for the communist leadership – and above all too powerful. The fact that cartel and supervisory authorities are taking action against the market power of large corporations such as Google, Amazon or Facebook is also true in Europe and the USA. But: “What makes the matter special in China are the outstanding position of the Communist Party and the tensions that exist again and again in China: Tensions between the large state corporations supervised by the CP on the one hand and the private sector on the other.” explains Clark.

Ant IPO stopped

These tensions became apparent in China over the past year. In several cases, the state and party leadership slowed down the emerging private companies. Ant, the parent company of the payment and financial services app Alipay, wanted to go public last November, for example. It would have been the largest IPO in world economic history. With him, the Chinese fintech company Ant would have collected around 30 billion euros. But two days before the equity debut in Hong Kong and Shanghai, the government surprisingly stopped the IPO. Ant does not meet certain regulations, it was announced. Further details: none. But in the following weeks it became clear that the cancellation of the Ant IPO probably came from the very top. China’s state and party leadership was apparently bothered by statements by Ant boss Ma Yun, alias Jack Ma, who said in a speech in Shanghai shortly before the planned IPO: “As far as the financial sector is concerned, we are still beginners in China. We do have Big banks – they are like big rivers. But what we mainly need are small lakes, ponds, streams and smaller rivers. ”

Open criticism crosses a red line

China’s financial system, previously dominated by large state banks, harbors risks, Ma criticized. That is unhealthy. A statement that many experts would endorse, but from the point of view of the communist leadership, the previously ubiquitous model manager had crossed a red line with his open criticism of the state banks.

The IPO of his fintech company Ant burst. Ma himself had to withdraw to a large extent from the public.

Several company directors resigned

“At first it was thought that this was all about Jack Ma because he was so open about himself, and about his company Ant,” says management consultant Clark, who has also written a book about the rise of Jack Ma. “But since then we have seen much more extensive crackdown by the authorities against large tech companies in China.”

Other prominent startup founders and tech billionaires resigned. For example, Zhang Yiming, the head of the TikTok parent company Bytedance, and Huang Zheng, who ran the emerging Chinese online shopping group Pinduoduo. The reasons for the resignations are unclear, but most industry observers believe government pressure played a role. “The Communist Party is profiting enormously from the consumption boom that all these tech companies have triggered in China,” Clark analyzes. “But this is not a one-way street. We see a certain double dependency between the CP and the tech companies: Both somehow need each other, but in the end the party says: ‘You need us more.'” It is becoming increasingly clear that China’s leadership is no longer allowing private tech companies to get away with as much as it has before. They too must submit to the Communist Party’s claim to leadership. Criticism will not be tolerated, however subtle it may be.

Lost 25 billion euros in one post

This was recently also experienced at the delivery service group Meituan, against which the antitrust authorities are investigating. Meituan boss Wang Xing posted a historical satirical text that is more than 1000 years old in early May. This text is about criticism of a former Chinese emperor. Some understood the post of the company boss and multi-billionaire as a hidden criticism of today’s rulers. The Meituan boss deleted the posted text, but Meituan’s stock market price plummeted by almost 15 percent, and the company lost around 25 billion euros in value in one fell swoop. The fact that Xing then donated around ten percent of his personal fortune, around 1.8 billion euros, to a charity is understood as an attempt at penance. “Many company bosses in China are currently examining how they can get rid of outstanding titles or even parts of their assets,” reports management consultant Clark. “It’s about behaving as inconspicuously as possible, no longer being the tallest tree in the forest. Because it is the first to be felled.”

Launched in 2020, The CrownX unites two leading enterprises in the industry to establish a leading retail – consumer platform in Vietnam. Within the framework of the transaction, The CrownX will partner with Lazada to accelerate the company’s digital transformation, accelerating the development of the integrated retail market from offline to online (“O2O”) in Vietnam. This transaction strengthens shareholders’ vision of the potential to build Vietnam’s first technology-enabled retail-consumer ecosystem, while expanding its reach to serve consumers nationwide. Alibaba and partners complete the investment of 400 million USD in The CrownX Mr. Danny Le – General Director of Masan Group – shared: The strategic cooperation agreement will help us accelerate the transformation of The CrownX into a Point of Life – an “all-in-one” platform serving the needs of customers. daily necessities of consumers on offline and online shopping channels. Our first priority is to modernize the retail essentials market in Vietnam, serving consumers with the best products and services. I believe this partnership will help the company realize Point of Life more quickly and effectively. Kenny Ho – Investment Director of Alibaba Group in Southeast Asia and India – said: The combination of Alibaba’s understanding in online retail industry, Lazada’s e-commerce platform, and selling system Masan’s scale of offline retail will be a catalyst to promote the modernization of Vietnam’s retail industry. We look forward to accompanying Masan to build a leading retail and consumer platform integrated from offline to online in Vietnam. Within the transaction framework, VinCommerce (VCM) will establish a strategic cooperation agreement with Lazada – Alibaba’s e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. Accordingly, VCM will be the leading retailer of necessities on the Lazada e-commerce platform. The two sides will share knowledge and experience to promote necessities to become a key industry of e-commerce. At the same time, develop the feature of supplying goods for online orders at VCM’s offline selling points. Although shopping with daily frequency, the ability of consumers to access essential products through online channels is still limited. Masan sets a target that the total value of goods from The CrownX’s online channel will account for at least 5% of the Company’s total sales in the near future.

If handing over to the son can make Alibaba develop better, of course it will be handed over to the son. But if Jack Ma handed over Alibaba to Zhang Yong, so that Alibaba could develop better, then Jack Ma would of course choose Zhang Yong.

When Jack Ma founded Alibaba, he also hoped that Alibaba could live to be 102 years old. In this case, Jack Ma would obviously choose the most suitable person to manage Alibaba. Zhang Yong started with Taobao Mall and then founded Double Eleven. It can be said that he has made great contributions to the development of Alibaba, and has a relatively deep affection for Alibaba. In all aspects, Zhang Yong may be a better successor.

And Jack Ma’s son, of course, is also very good. However, I may have been in school for so many years, may not have enough work experience, and the qualifications and abilities may not necessarily take on the important tasks of Alibaba, a large enterprise at once, and Jack Ma’s son’s ambition may not be to take over Alibaba. , Ma Yun now chose Zhang Yong to take over Alibaba instead of his son.

And there is another point. Now Jack Ma holds about 6% of Alibaba’s equity. Although Jack Ma has a strong voice, if he wants his son to take over, he may also need to come up with an answer that can satisfy shareholders. In other words, if Jack Ma’s son does not have sufficient qualifications and experience, as well as relatively prominent achievements, then the major shareholders may not be very happy.

To sum up, Jack Ma chose Zhang Yong instead of his son to take over Ali. This is also a very smart choice. One is that his son may not have enough seniority and may not have made great achievements, and Zhang Yong has set up for the development of Alibaba. After all the contributions, Zhang Yong is obviously more suitable.

An employee scans and checks products in a Tiki warehouse in Ho Chi Minh City. (Photo: Bloomberg) Crossing the crowded streets of Ho Chi Minh City in a Honda, Ho Duc Quang carries toys, books and other packages to deliver to Tiki.vn customers. Quang, 25, needs to be quick, as Tiki promises to deliver in 2 hours. He uses AirPods to notify customers of his arrival, but there is one thing that slows down this shipper: Quang has to wait for customers to open the package, confirm the correct goods before departing for the next trip. It is a mandatory operation for those who do not trust online sellers. Quang’s speedy deliveries between the city of 9 million people are just part of a campaign to win over customers, many of whom shop online for the first time due to the pandemic. Winning isn’t easy where only about a third of adults have a bank account and less than 5% have a credit card. Most shopping at convenience stores, traditional markets. Although Euromonitor International estimates that e-commerce will only account for 3% of Vietnam’s retail market in 2020, the lowest in Southeast Asia, the potential of the market is extremely attractive. According to a report by Google, Temasek, Bain & Co, Vietnam’s digital economy is predicted to reach US$52 billion by 2025, an increase of 29% compared to 2020. Competition for customers Startups backed by Warburg Pincus, Goldman Sachs, JD.com or Shopee, Amazon are all targeting the Vietnamese middle class. From 2016 to the first half of 2020, investors poured $1.9 billion into the domestic online sector. Mr. Ralf Matthaes, Managing Director of Infocus Mekong Research, assessed that Vietnam is in the early stages of becoming a digital society with a young and technology-loving population. Therefore, these companies have to compete with each other to provide services. The government has set a target of online shopping to account for 10% of Vietnam’s retail sales by 2025. The regulator wants to reduce cash payments to create a more transparent, modern economy through increased non-payment of transactions. cash for public services and improve the regulatory framework for electronic payments. The consortium led by Alibaba and Baring Private Equity Asia will invest $400 million in exchange for a 5.5% stake in CrownX of Masan retail group. Under the agreement, Masan will cooperate with Lazada – Alibaba’s e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. Kenny Ho, Southeast Asia Investment Director of Alibaba, affirmed that the combination of Alibaba’s online retail expertise, Lazada’s Vietnam platform, and Masan’s offline network will be a powerful catalyst for the company’s success. modernization of Vietnam’s retail market. In January, M-Service, the startup behind the Momo e-wallet, raised more than $100 million from an investment group, including Warburg Pincus. For the first time in their shopping life, Vietnamese people are “encircled” by the form of customer-first retailing that is common in developed economies. Trust of customers Online retailers are trying to woo shoppers wary of scam stores that don’t offer return policies. According to economist Nguyen Tri Hieu, “Vietnamese people don’t trust what they can’t see. Usually, they need to know what they’re buying. They have to smell it and touch it.” So e-commerce sites raced to launch marketing campaigns, offering discounts on everything from AirPods to Samsung washing machines. E-wallet startup that offers coupons. Tiki applies a refund policy of up to 30 days. Nguyen Thi Kim Chi, 31, who works for an entertainment website, said that 70% off and customer-oriented items attract her. Buyers are empowered to evaluate products and services online. If normal, they often have to go to the store complaining about the low quality of the product and there may be quarrels but nothing is corrected. According to Mr. Matthase, the epidemic will boost digital retail as 30% more Vietnamese will shop for everything from food to electronics online in 2020. Retail shifting According to Jeffrey Perlman, managing director of Warburg Pincus in Singapore, Vietnam’s retail market changes faster than other markets. Tiki is currently the largest domestic e-commerce platform in the country. Software engineer Tran Ngoc Thai Son built Tiki in 2010 from $5,000. Mr. Son writes code, buys 100 English books from Amazon, and delivers it by himself by motorbike. Currently, Tiki has 3,100 employees and a state-of-the-art logistics operations system overseen by Henry Low, former head of Amazon and Coupang. Along with the company’s growth is the effort to attract customers. Mr. Son deployed a system to filter counterfeit goods and sided with customers. For example, if there is a defect in a newly purchased phone, the customer wants to return it, they will support 100%. If the seller is not okay with this decision, Tiki will shut down their account. From diapers to beer According to Crunchbase, investors like Sumitomo, JD.com have invested $192.5 million in Tiki. Mr. Son anticipates more rounds of funding and prepares for an IPO. According to Mr. Low, Tiki handles less than 2 million orders per month. Employees busy arranging everything from diapers and diapers to Corona beer in the 10,000-square-foot fulfillment center. Tiki applies artificial intelligence and robots capable of transporting 800kg products to speed things up. Thanks to the logistics system, Mr. Son aims to transport 500,000 products in 2 hours, up from 200,000 currently, helping Tiki achieve its profit target. Du Lam (According to Bloomberg)

UC Browser is developed by UCWeb, a subsidiary of Alibaba (China). This is one of the most popular mobile browsers in Asia, with over 500 million downloads on Google Play alone. According to security researcher Gabi Cirlig, UC Browser silently sent iPhone users’ browsing data (even with incognito mode enabled) to UCWeb servers (registered in China, but located in the US). ). This is in stark contrast to the company’s previous statement, which does not record a user’s “browsing and search history” when incognito mode is activated. More worryingly, UC Browser also collects IDs (unique identifiers) to track users across various websites. The collection of user data happens on both Android and iOS versions, not sure what UCWeb is doing with all this information? Interested readers can watch the video at: “This kind of tracking is done on purpose,” Cirlig told Forbes. When compared with Google Chrome browser and some other popular browsers, he found there is no browser like UC Browser. UC Browser just rolled out a new update last week, but the company never mentioned monitoring users’ browsing activity. Currently the English version of UC Browser has been removed from the App Store, but the Chinese version still exists, and unlike the English version, it does not send data back to the UCWeb server. Earlier in 2019, the UC Browser version for Android also violated Google Play’s policies.

Huang Zheng, founder of Pinduoduo (left) and Wang Xing, founder of Meituan – Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images. Huang Zheng, founder and CEO of e-commerce firm Pinduoduo, and Wang Xing, founder and CEO of food delivery platform Meituan, have seen their fortunes plummet after being criticized by an activist group for consumers. According to Forbes, the share price of this Pinduoduo 11/5 fell more than 9%, “blowing” $ 4.3 billion from Huang Zheng’s assets. The founder of Pinduoduo is currently worth $42.9 billion according to Forbes’ real-time statistics, making him the 4th richest person in China. Meanwhile, Wang Xing’s fortune fell by $2.5 billion as investors continued to sell off Meituan shares in the May 11 session. The share price fell another 5.3% after falling 7.1% in the previous session. Wang is currently worth $19.5 billion. A day earlier, the Shanghai Consumer Council said it had convened both Pinduoduo and Meituan. The organization criticized Pinduoduo for its poor quality goods, rampant counterfeiting on the company’s e-commerce platform, and poor after-sales service. The organization also condemned Meituan for issues with refunds, failed food deliveries and misleading content on the company’s platform. The statement of the Shanghai Consumer Council comes as the Chinese government is tightening control of the country’s largest technology firms. Last week, Wang was also criticized after posting a poem of a Tang poem allegedly intended to criticize the Chinese government on the social network Fanfou. The poem titled The Book of the Dead (Book Burning Pit) by poet Zhang Jie, written at the end of the Tang Dynasty, condemns Qin Shi Huang’s act of burning books to control people’s thoughts and suppress the mind. awake. The poem is meant to mock Qin Shi Huang for seeing academia as the greatest threat, but his reign was eventually overthrown by non-intellectuals. A few days later, Wang deleted the post, explaining that the poem was just a reminder that “the most dangerous enemies are often the ones we least expect”. The 42-year-old CEO also added that Meituan’s biggest rival appears to be Ele.me but is in fact “unnoticed companies and business models that are disrupting the food delivery industry”. Late last month, Beijing’s anti-trust authority officially launched an investigation into Meituan’s alleged request for sellers to be allowed only the Meituan platform or another competitor. Since then, the company’s stock price has fallen by nearly 18 percent. On Weibo, many Chinese netizens compared Wang’s posting of the poem to Jack Ma’s speech criticizing the financial management system in October 2020. The co-founder of Alibaba at the time even said bluntly that Chinese banks operate like “pawn shops”. Jack Ma’s speech is said to spark a series of strong moves by Chinese authorities against Alibaba as well as its subsidiary Ant Group. Ant’s “big” IPO was suspended a few days later. And Alibaba was fined a record $2.8 billion for monopolies last month.

This is part of the agreement the two signed last Friday. The deal will see JD become the latest Chinese Internet company to join the smart electrification craze that is transforming the auto industry day by day. Enovate said both sides will also work on digital marketing to get the startup up and running as soon as possible. “We will share resources in a number of different aspects, from branding and products to users and channels of distribution and consumption,” said Yu Songyao, senior executive at Enovate. . A new energy Enovate sedan attracts the attention of visitors at the Guangzhou auto show. JD, also known as Jingdong and formerly 360buy, is a Chinese e-commerce company headquartered in Beijing. The company is one of two giant B2C retailers in China by transaction volume and revenue, a member of Fortune Global 500. In other words, JD is the 2nd largest e-commerce company in China, just behind Alibaba. Forging partnerships with big internet companies is crucial, analysts say, as the chance to stand out is slimmer for lesser-known startups. Early adopters like Tesla and Nio are gaining ground, traditional carmakers including Volkswagen are also launching their own electric cars, so the door for latecomers is closing. quickly, must really try and be quick. Statistics show that Nio sold 20,060 vehicles in the first three months of this year, up 422.7 percent year-on-year. Volkswagen said it expects to sell 100,000 electric vehicles in China this year. Late last month, Nezha, another little-known electric car startup, announced a partnership with Chinese internet security company Qihoo 360. The company will become the second largest shareholder as it leads Nezha’s 3 billion yuan ($467 million) Series D fundraising effort. According to analysts, Internet security is becoming an essential issue as vehicles get smarter and 360 Security is seeking this investment to open up a platform for its products. on smart cars. Nezha CEO Zhang Yong said Qihoo 360 will provide the startup with technical help and facilitate financing for the company. “For us, the top task now is survival,” Zhang said. Founded in 2014, Nezha has sold more than 35,000 vehicles across its two car models. The company’s sales in the first quarter of 2021 increased fivefold, to more than 7,400 vehicles. Optional Toyota “knock down” Hyundai from the top position in the electric vehicle market

Meituan is China’s largest food delivery app. (Photo: QZ) A big storm hit after Meituan founder and CEO Wang Xing posted a poem from the Tang Dynasty on social media last week. The article on the Fanfou website has since been deleted, but Meituan confirmed it contains the poem “The Book Burning Pit” by author Zhang Jie written more than 1,100 years ago to satirize Qin Shi Huang. According to historical records, Qin Shi Huang quelled dissent in the country by digging huge holes, burning books not approved by the government, and burying scholars to prevent people from condemning him. Some comments on social media suggested that Wang may have posted the poem to implicitly criticize the Chinese government, which is holding back the country’s largest technology firms. Others compared the post to Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s speech last year, when he smacked China’s central banks and financial regulators for using outdated methods. Jack Ma’s speech seems to have angered the authorities. Ant Group’s historic IPO was also suspended at the last minute. Meituan and many other “big players” such as Alibaba and Tencent have been fined or investigated and monitored for several months now for violating monopoly or affecting consumer rights. The poem, which is more than 1,100 years old, further reveals the predicament that awaits companies like Meituan. Meituan stock fell 13% from May 6 to May 11, wiping out nearly $30 billion in market capitalization. Currently, the stock recovered slightly, gaining 2.5% at the close of the session on May 12. CEO Wang later posted an explanation, saying that the poem was about Meituan’s competitors. “The Qin Dynasty was afraid of scholars, but Liu Bang and Xiang Yu – the people who overthrew the Qin Dynasty – were not educated. That reminds me that the most dangerous enemies are not the people expected. Alibaba focused on JD.com and then Pinduoduo surpassed in terms of users. Similarly, Ele.me is seen as Meituan’s biggest competitor, but what really shocks the entire industry might be a certain business, business model that hasn’t caught our eye yet.” In April, Meituan and dozens of other companies were warned when Alibaba received a record $2.8 billion fine. Chinese authorities said Alibaba was fined for behaving like a monopolist. They also tell businesses that if they don’t address monopolistic behavior, they will be similarly punished. Later, China’s State Market Regulation Authority opened an antitrust investigation against Meituan for “exclusive trading arrangements”. The company was summoned by many agencies, including the Shanghai authorities, about the interests of customers. According to analysts Fitch Ratings, regulatory risks with China’s internet sector tend to escalate. The agency has not ruled out any fines with other companies after what happened to Alibaba. One netizen commented: “The poem is very suggestive. Wang Xing posted it at a critical period of the Big Tech crackdown. This is clearly inappropriate action. Wang may mean his rivals, but investors don’t think so. This is a very sensitive moment.” Du Lam (According to CNN)

According to the Bloomberg Chinese tech giants like Jack Ma’s Alibaba and Tencent Holdings operate similarly to America’s Facebook and Alphabet. They mine user data to refine digital services. Data strengths will lead to better products. As a result, large technology corporations become richer, more powerful and easily dominate the market. Over the years, the Chinese government has gone further than the rest of the world in tightening control of the Big Tech group. In March, Beijing publicly plans to “rule” platform companies that accumulate data to monopolize and swallow smaller competitors. Chinese authorities fined Alibaba $ 2.8 billion for abusing their dominant market position. Dozens of other major Internet companies also spent a month correcting their anti-competitive practices. China is tightening control of major tech corporations, including Alibaba and Ant Group of billionaire Jack Ma. Photo: Reuters. Risk of nationalization of data Beijing is pouring money into digital infrastructure, drafting new data usage laws, and building new data centers across the country. China’s goal is to be at the forefront of economic transformation in the coming decades. “It’s not a short-term initiative. China really sees data as an economic engine,” said Kendra Schaefer, Head of Digital Research at Trivium China. According to the China Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, China’s digital economy grows much faster than GDP in 2019. Market research firm IDC predicts China will hold about 1. / 3 of the world’s data in 2025, or about 48.6 zettabytes, 60% more than the US. The Chinese regime’s challenge is to get big tech companies to join. Those are the organizations that hold the most data in a country of 1.4 billion people. Companies like Alibaba and Tencent have benefited when China blocked foreign companies like Google and Facebook. Now, they have to share those benefits Professor Zhao Yanqing At a Chinese economic forum, professor Zhao Yanqing at Xiamen University pointed out that big tech companies have to nationalize data. “Companies like Alibaba and Tencent benefit when China blocks foreign platforms like Google and Facebook. Now, they have to share those benefits,” he added. However, most analysts say that is unlikely. Nationalization of data can hamper innovation. Beijing is in need of technological breakthroughs as the US works with its allies to prevent China from making new strides. “China needs highly competitive companies,” said Associate Professor Lizhi Liu at Georgetow University. “Nationalization of data will hurt technology companies. If data is taken away, they also lose their motivation and ability to innovate,” the expert added. Beijing’s difficult position In recent years, Chinese lawmakers have turned their attention to security. According to a law in 2017, authorities will have access to most personal data when necessary, even requiring foreign businesses to store data of Chinese customers in the country. Chinese leaders are now stepping up the use of big data to improve government services. Firefighters can use data to respond more quickly to calls. Hospital data will help track people down and prevent Covid-19 from spreading widely. Data lays the foundation for everything from smart cities to financial regulation to surveillance activities against dissidents. The Chinese authorities are also developing the digital yuan, competing with Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay. These two platforms now dominate the Chinese mobile payments market. Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay now dominate the Chinese mobile payments market. Photo: Reuters. The digital yuan will allow the People’s Bank of China to collect huge amounts of data about people’s transactions. Authorities have also made significant progress in the corporate social credit measurement system, from paying taxes, protecting the environment to product quality. The Chinese authorities insist that they will not force businesses to deliver data. “As for the use, development and exchange of data, we are still exploring the mechanisms,” said Hu Jianhua, deputy general manager of the Guizhou Big Data Development Administration. “Enterprises have ownership of the data. We encourage, but do not force them to, disclose the data,” he added. Data privacy is China’s “biggest obstacle” in dealing with the tech giants Expert Angela Zhang of the University of Hong Kong Another solution is that the government also invests in businesses. Last month, Bloomberg reported that China has proposed to set up a joint venture led by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) with major technology corporations. The joint venture will monitor the data of hundreds of millions of users. Financial Times reports that billionaire Ma’s Ant Group declined the proposal. However, according to Bloomberg , a few years ago, when not agreeing to share data with the PBoC, Alibaba and Tencent faced many troubles. “Data privacy is China’s ‘biggest stumbling block’ in dealing with the tech giants. There is a conflict in protecting user privacy and fostering competition among these giants. Different backgrounds, “commented Angela Zhang, director of the China Law Center at the University of Hong Kong. China’s biggest companies are also looking to reduce damage from Beijing’s new rules. After Alibaba’s investigation is over, CEO Daniel Zhang said the company will continue to work with the data privacy regulator. Last month, Tencent’s Pony Ma proposed stricter rules for Internet businesses, including Tencent. He also has a “voluntary meeting” with the country’s antitrust agencies.

Huawei’s pivot to software comes as its smartphone business has seen sales decline because of the aforementioned restrictions. On the other hand, behind Huawei’s push into software is also an attempt to isolate potential geopolitics and any other regulation from the US. Huawei hopes to expand the software sector in its future revenue structure Accordingly, Arcfox, a brand under the automaker BAIC Group, has launched a car with Huawei’s car technology. It is known that this new model owns a cockpit equipped with the HarmonyOS operating system launched by Huawei in 2019. Huawei has also advertised its HarmonyOS can work on various devices from smartphones to TV and car. As such, Huawei will not manufacture cars, but instead will focus on technology to power the cooperating car manufacturers. At the same time, on April 25, Huawei launched a number of new cloud computing products to challenge rival Alibaba in this segment. In a press release the same day, Huawei said it expects its focus on cloud computing to increase its share of its software and services business in the group’s total revenue. In pursuing sectors such as vehicles and cloud computing, Huawei will face challenges from some of China’s biggest tech companies. Such as Alibaba, Tencent are the leading companies in the cloud computing market in China. Baidu or Xiaomi are also “expanding” in the vehicle market. Therefore, Huawei’s decision to redirect takes a lot of time and resources. According to Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint Research, “Huawei is doubling down on its transition to a software, cloud and services company. development just like Google “.

According to the New York Times billionaire Jack Ma – China’s most famous businessman – is away from the limelight. Close people revealed that he spent his time painting and practicing tai chi. The Chinese government is bringing a series of technology corporations into sight. The enormous wealth and influence of these businesses are said to be beyond the limit. Jack Ma, Alibaba e-commerce conglomerate and fintech (finance and technology) company Ant Group are Beijing’s biggest targets. European and American authorities have been trying to tighten control of the tech giants for years. However, they cannot make a big difference like what happened to the Alibaba founder in China. The Chinese government insists that businesses must commit to placing social stability above profits. Tencent founder Pony Ma (left) and billionaire Jack Ma at an event in Beijing in 2018. Photo: New York Times. The unprecedented “punishment” campaign The Beijing government is not just tightening the control of Alibaba. Ant Group CEO Simon Hu resigned in March. Just a few days later, Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang stepped down as chairman. Also in March, at a meeting, Tencent founder Pony Ma proposed stricter rules for Internet businesses, including Tencent. He also has a “voluntary meeting” with the country’s antitrust agencies. Last week, China’s antitrust agency summoned top 34 Internet companies to discuss new rules of fair competition. The discussion revolves around changes in business. Companies are committed to taking it seriously. “The new rules will require Internet platforms to look back on how they innovate in the future. And as a result there will be less innovation,” said Gordon Orr, a board member of Meituan, company. Chinese food delivery, comment. However, New York Times The Beijing government will not be too heavy on Alibaba and other Chinese Internet corporations. Even as tightening oversight, Beijing still praised the group’s contributions to the economy. Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang stepped down from his chair as the company’s chairman. Photo: New York Times. Chinese President Xi Jinping wants the economy to be driven by innovation from Chinese tech corporations, instead of big foreign ones. “It may be too early to declare that Jack Ma has failed”, New York Times comment. “To the success and performance of the Chinese economy, Alibaba is more important than any other business,” commented Richard McGregor of the Lowy Institute. “The Chinese authorities want to continue reaping the benefits of Jack Ma’s company, but on their terms. Beijing doesn’t nationalize Alibaba. The company is just narrowing its operations.” “Alibaba has a perfect opportunity to grow into a world-class company,” said Wang Guoping, an official in Hangzhou city (where Alibaba is located), in the 2000s. “What a world-class company needs most is a soul, a leader, a world-class businessman. I believe Jack Ma meets those standards, “he added. Change your attitude According to Porter Erisman, one of Alibaba’s first executives, in the 2000s, most employees at Alibaba were just trying to make a lot of money. Jack Ma alone had another concern. He fears that one day the company will become too big. And Alibaba could be under pressure for holding huge market power. In 2011, Jack Ma understood that his ambitions could make regulators dissatisfied. Ma quietly took over Alipay – Alibaba’s payment service. That move angered one of Alibaba’s biggest shareholders – Yahoo -. However, according to Jack Ma, that is the action needed to meet the new Chinese regulations. Alipay later became Ant Group. As Alibaba grew, Jack Ma began meeting presidents and movie stars admired by many Chinese businessmen. “That changed the views of Jack Ma about himself and the Chinese government,” said Duncan Clark, Chairman of BDA China, commented. Mr. Simon Hu, CEO of Ant Group, resigned in March. Photo: New York Times. When Jack Ma stepped down as Alibaba chairman in 2019, a Chinese state-run newspaper commented: “There is no such thing as the Jack Ma era, only Jack Ma is part of this era.” Chinese leaders need the private sector to sustain economic growth. However, they do not want this area to exert too much influence on society. In October 2020, when Ant was preparing to go public (IPO), Jack Ma criticized Chinese financial regulators at a conference in Shanghai. He describes the Chinese banking system “operates like a pawnshop.” Shortly after, Ant’s IPO was ordered to be canceled. The Chinese government wants to continue reaping the benefits of Mr. Ma’s company, but on their terms Richard McGregor, senior fellow at the Lowy Institute “In China, it is difficult to say that the emperor is not dressed,” commented Kellee S. Tsai at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, referring to the short story “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. Mr. Ma has also rarely appeared since then. According to the source of the New York Times , in January, he showed up for an internal chat. The staff then shared Mr. Ma’s message to reassure everyone. Recently, the Hurun Report team (based in Shanghai) estimated that for the first time after 3 years, Mr. Ma was not among the three richest people in China. First place belongs to Mr. Zhong Shanshan, a well-known billionaire behind a group of famous bottled water and pharmaceutical companies.

According to the Nikkei Asian Review After a record $ 2.8 billion fine, trouble is not over for Alibaba’s billionaire Jack Ma. Because the corporation’s media empire worries the Chinese authorities. Alibaba is famous for e-commerce platforms like Taobao and Tmall. However, it also owns a media empire that includes media, media and broadcasting, social media platforms, video streaming websites, film production companies, and advertising agencies. . The above media platforms are effective tools to promote other Alibaba businesses. Like Alibaba, many tech companies are competing to build a vast ecosystem, from e-commerce to entertainment. Alibaba could continue to face trouble after a record $ 2.8 billion fine. Photo: Reuters. Communication power However, as the influence grew, Alibaba fell into the sights of the Beijing authorities. Fintech (financial technology) company Ant Group was asked to postpone its IPO (initial public offering) at the end of last year. By mid-March, Beijing asked Alibaba – which now owns the flyer South China Morning Post – divestments in the media sector due to fears of the company’s growing influence, according to the company Wall Street Journal. Out South China Morning Post Alibaba owns video streaming platform Youku and a 30% stake in social networking site Weibo. The group also invests in Bilibili, known as the Chinese version of YouTube, news conglomerate Yicai Media Group, news websites. 36Kr, Huxiu.com and Focus Media – China’s largest offline advertising agency. “To be fair, Alibaba’s control over information, media and personal data in China has outstripped the tech giants in other countries,” said Professor Zhu Ning at Hoc commented Shanghai Advanced Finance Institute. Alibaba’s control over information, media and personal data in China has outstripped tech giants in other countries. – Professor Zhu Ning Last December, the business news site Huxiu – funded by Ant – has targeted Chinese antitrust regulations. Huxiu warns that Beijing’s tightening of regulation will affect Internet companies and hurt the country’s economy. The article was published after China’s market regulator opened an investigation against Alibaba. The four-month investigation ended with a record 18 billion yuan ($ 2.8 billion) fine for Ma’s group. However, the post was removed from Huxiu’s website shortly after. The site also stopped posting news for a month. Last year, Weibo was also found to have deleted posts, closed comments, and removed highly searched topics in an attempt to quell rumors related to a senior Alibaba executive. Alibaba is Weibo’s second largest shareholder and largest ad customer. “Alibaba’s power to shape public opinion is amazing,” the paper said People’s Daily of the Chinese state. Alibaba invests heavily in the media sector, including newspapers, electronic media and broadcasting, social networking platform … Photo: Nikkei Asian Review. As the user’s information source increasingly depends on technology platforms, the influence of these platforms on the public opinion increases. That forces the Chinese regime to change its attitude. In fact, in 2014, the Chinese government openly encouraged the traditional media and Internet companies to further combine and invest in each other. At the moment, authorities are concerned that Alibaba’s excessive control over the media will help it strengthen its dominance in many other sectors outside of e-commerce and finance. online. Media investments mean a lot for Alibaba, analysts say. Tencent Holdings – a rival of Alibaba – owns messaging app WeChat and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok (known in China as Douyin). Meanwhile, billionaire Jack Ma’s group lacks self-developed media platforms to attract and retain users. “An ecosystem that lacks a media platform is at a disadvantage in terms of competition. Looking at competitors, Alibaba sees the benefits of having media resources,” Nikkei Asian Review quoted Mr. Martin Bao, an analyst at ICBC International in Shanghai, commented. Fierce competition Tencent’s 1 billion WeChat user platform is the driving force behind the growth of e-commerce site Pinduoduo. Tencent is the second largest shareholder in Pinduoduo. Thanks to the huge number of users, short video platform Douyin is also able to quickly grow its e-commerce business through live streaming. The media also helps increase advertising revenue. “Advertising is the core business of Internet corporations, bringing stable revenue and low cost,” Bao explained. Alibaba does not disclose advertising revenue in its financial statements. However, in 2017, Alibaba CFO Meggie Wu said 60% of the company’s revenue came from advertising platforms. Stores buy advertising space on Alibaba’s websites and corporate media partners. The Chinese regime’s message is very clear. They decide what people should pay attention to, not private corporations – Associate Professor Fang Kecheng According to research firm eMarketer, Alibaba accounts for more than 30% of the Chinese e-advertising market in 2020. The group cooperates with more than 4,000 media partners, 100,000 mobile applications, reaching 98% of the population. in a country with a billion people. Alibaba’s media investment “is primarily aimed at expanding the ecosystem at all costs to prevent other companies like Tencent and Baidu from dominating,” said Leo Sun, a technology expert at The Motley Fool. cyber “. Alibaba’s rivals also invest significantly in the media. For example, in 2020, Baidu spent $ 3.6 billion to acquire the social media platform Joyy’s live-streaming business. Tencent developed its own video platform and online news site, and invested in Kuaishou and Bilibili. The Alibaba founder’s influence in the Chinese business world attracts the attention of the Beijing authorities. Photo: Reuters. However, Mr. Sun believes that corporations like Tencent, Baidu and ByteDance are unlikely to fall into the sights of Beijing authorities like Alibaba. Their investments are still related to the core business and not as extensive as Alibaba. Meanwhile, Alibaba founders are often known for their unique ideas. Mr. Ma also likes to convey his message to a wide audience. He even opened a business school for Chinese business leaders. Ma’s influence in the business world caught Beijing’s attention. Sheet Financial Times reported that his school had been forced to stop training. “The Chinese government’s message is very clear. They decide what people should pay attention to, not private corporations,” said Associate Professor Fang Kecheng at the Zhongshan Zhongzheng University.

In addition, this company will serve other financial institutions such as state-owned banks to compete in lending with fintech companies. According to a source close to the Financial Times, Ant Group wants to lead the new company. But PBoC said that this will create a conflict of interest. China wants to take control of Ant Group’s huge data warehouse. (Photo: FT) “The first priority is to ensure that the new business fully complies with the regulations. State participation will help the PBoC achieve those goals,” a source revealed. In January, the PBoC announced regulations requiring Chinese companies to secure government approval before being allowed to provide personal credit services. These companies have to ensure that they have 3 licenses and all are subject to government control. PBoC officials held a conversation with Ant Group executives on April 12. This month, Chinese regulators also asked Ant Group to restructure and sanction Xi. Alibaba Group Jack Ma’s record fine of 2.8 billion USD. Banks in China have long complained that Ant Group has benefited by not having to comply with the same strict regulations on lending as they do. The company has established a dominance in China with more than 700 million users a month on Alipay, an Alibaba mobile payment app. By the end of June 2020, Ant Group had developed a consumer lending platform with outstanding credit to about 1,700 billion yuan ($ 262 billion), more than any Chinese bank. Come on. In addition, the fintech company charges banks for loans on their apps. “Ant Group’s credit database offers a lot of value to banks,” said a former PBoC official. A person knowledgeable about this issue commented: “Ant Group needs to find a way to legalize this data warehouse. The proposed solution is to set up a credit reporting company approved by PBoC”. But there are also opinions that state control could affect the ability to collect and analyze information for Ant Group’s core business units, including consumer lending. “Ant Group really wants to hold on to its most valuable assets,” said a source. The central bank of China will release a report this Sunday on the creation of a state-controlled data company. However, neither Ant Group nor the PBoC have yet to comment on this. Phuong Anh (According to Financial Times)

ByteDance, Baidu and CTrip are committed to ensuring fair competition. Photo: Reuters More than 20 leading Chinese technology companies have publicly pledged to adhere to antitrust principles, after regulators asked them to pay attention to the record penalty for the “giant” e-commerce. Alibaba. In a series of separate statements published by the China Market Regulatory Authority on April 14-15, some of the country’s biggest tech brands – including ByteDance, Baidu and CTrip – pledged will “ensure fair competition”, “do not abuse a dominant market position” and “do not conduct unfair pricing practices”. The pledges come after regulators summoned 34 technology companies on April 13 and asked them to “rectify” any unfair non-competitive practices, and pay attention to in the case of Alibaba. Companies have one month for full reform, after conducting internal audits and adjusting practices that compromise fair competition. Ride-hailing service Didi, video streaming platforms Kuaishou and Bilibili, as well as e-commerce company JD.com were among the parties that have made a public commitment since that meeting. JD.com said it will not force “choose one of the two” behavior on its retailers – where merchants are required to work on only one platform, not on a competitor platform. . This is the policy that Alibaba used to apply. In its statement, Didi pledged that unless necessary for regular business operations, the company will not illegally collect or misuse customers’ personal information. Last weekend, Chinese regulators fined Alibaba up to $ 2.78 billion after a months-long investigation found the company abused its dominant position in the market. Alibaba and JD.com, along with games and messaging app giant Tencent, have greatly benefited from the increasingly technological lifestyles in China and the absence of major U.S. competitors. But as these platforms with hundreds of millions of regular users are growing, public opinion is increasingly concerned about the problem of user data that these companies collect over the long term. According to observers, China has put domestic technology companies on the target to limit the reach of private companies to the daily financial activities of its people. That move could curb their dominance.

Lead

With technology and traffic in hand, Internet giants have the inherent advantages of entering education. With their unique trump cards, how can Ali, Byte, Huawei, NetEase, and Tencent play in the education industry?

1. Taobao education e-commerce platform builds a bridge between education and training institutions and consumers

In June 2020, Taobao Education released the “100 Million Freshman Program”, which will help more than 1,000 educational training and knowledge-paying institutions acquire more than 100,000 new students in the next three years. “Now 9 months have passed, and the first year goal has been completed ahead of schedule. At the same time, the average number of merchants entering Taobao Education every month in the past year has reached 1,300, which is 30% more than the initial stage of the epidemic. The supply and demand for knowledge are being matched on the platform at a high speed.” Taobao Education Operations Director Ye Ting shared.

Taobao didn’t get involved in education only last year. As early as 2013, Taobao launched Taobao classmates, teaching and training institutions can live teaching on Taobao classmates platform. In 2015, Taobao classmates changed its name to Taobao Education. However, even though Taobao Education relied on the country’s largest e-commerce platform at that time, it did not make any big moves.

Until March 2020, the epidemic forced the online transformation and upgrading of education and training institutions. Taobao Education Department was formally established, and Taobao began to make great efforts in online education. In addition to the epidemic, why did Taobao Education reorganize its organizational structure and start strong operations, and how can it achieve brilliant results within a year?

Relying on Taobao Tmall’s over 900 million monthly active users, Taobao Education has a natural traffic advantage. Moreover, users are not unfamiliar with purchasing educational products on Taobao. Taobao has a large number of educational physical products. Behind the purchase of review materials for postgraduate entrance examinations is actually the needs of users for postgraduate entrance examinations. Therefore, Taobao Education does not start from zero, but only needs to “completely integrate the previous consumer label and learning label, so that the two groups become one group.” It may also be one of the reasons why Taobao has quickly entered the education field by opening up physical and virtual consumer groups.

Huang Lei, general manager of Taobao Education Department, defines Taobao Education as follows: “Knowledge is a very immersive and continuous learning, which can better enhance the stickiness of Taobao users (consumers) on Taobao; knowledge categories can Increase user activity.”

If it is said that its own traffic foundation and education scene are the confidence of Taobao’s entry into education, then Taobao Education’s comprehensive service platform for education and training institutions and consumers is a catalyst for fruitful results in the past year.

From operations, live broadcasting to marketing, Taobao Education empowers educational institutions with several e-commerce unique tricks. In terms of course release, Taobao Education has launched a light classroom mini program. Education and training institutions or knowledge-paying businesses can publish courses and pay for knowledge in the background through the mini program. Taking advantage of the content advantages of the courses, live broadcasts and short videos are also used by educational institutions to bring goods. One hour before the double eleven pre-sale last year, 44% of people bought online courses from Taobao live broadcast rooms, and famous teachers took courses became a trend.

In response to the possible funding problems of small and medium-sized institutions, Taobao also provides financial solutions: “Merchants can apply for SME revolving loans provided by online commercial banks to reduce the difficulty of loans and solve the cash flow problems of institutions.”

“Taobao Education has a dedicated service business group. If any business has a problem in the group, you can get feedback and solve it immediately, which is very convenient.” said Xu Zulu, founder of Jiuming English.

On the consumer side, Taobao Education also made a lot of effort. In order to provide consumers with more secure services and fully meet the needs of consumers, Taobao Education launched an initiative to learn with confidence on the first anniversary of the Customer complaints, order ratios, refund intervention rates, etc. are all included in the evaluation system, and data indicators are used to force organizations to improve service capabilities and after-sales capabilities. It provides multiple guarantees from the four dimensions of course quality, logistics service, payment service, and after-sales service, so that consumers can feel at ease to experience high-quality courses, and in a true sense “choose and learn with confidence”.

2. Dingding Education’s new infrastructure helps inclusive education

In 2020, Dingding will change slogan to “make work and study easier”, which is evident in its determination to accelerate the layout of education. The data also shows that DingTalk’s efforts over the past year have achieved remarkable results. On January 14, 2021, at the DingTalk 6.0 release conference, DingTalk officially announced that DingTalk has served more than 210,000 schools, 7 million teachers and 140 million student users.

Dingding did not only start catching up with the high-speed train of online education during the epidemic. As early as March 2019, DingTalk released its exclusive version “DingTalk Future Campus” for schools. The purpose is to help schools achieve a comprehensive digital transformation through five aspects: organizational online, communication online, collaborative online, business online, and ecological online. Create the school’s own digital operation and management platform.

Chen Hang, CEO of Alibaba Dingding, once said that Dingding was originally developed for SMEs to work online, but noticed that many users in the education field also have corresponding needs, so they also launched corresponding products. But this is by no means the only reason for Dingding into education.

In June 2016, the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Education Informatization” mentioned that the phenomenon of “two skins” between informatization and education and teaching still exists, and the application motivation of teachers, students and education administrators needs to be further stimulated. It is common for many schools to ignore the safety of construction, the hardware to ignore the software, and the data collection to ignore the data maintenance.

In April 2018, the Ministry of Education issued the “Education Informatization 2.0 Action Plan”. National documents show that while educational informatization has become the general trend, there are still many problems. Therefore, relying on Alibaba Cloud’s underlying capabilities and technical support, DingTalk has proposed its own solutions for education informatization.

Entering the door of online education a year earlier than the epidemic, Dingding has more buffer time to fine-tune the layout of new education infrastructure. Aiming at the entire process of education, DingTalk has launched a complete digital solution. With the help of digital technology, DingTalk has helped to achieve inclusive education in all aspects.

For education authorities, DingTalk launches the bureau’s school home management service platform. The district and county education bureaus can use the digital cockpit function to understand the operation of all schools in the region. Teachers’ version of DingTalk is launched for teachers, and the most commonly used by teachers More than a dozen functions are grouped together on the “Teacher’s Workbench” to gather the teacher’s daily work. Teachers can publish homework, take classes online, count class information or issue notices with just one button operation on the workbench, completing most of the teaching, teaching and research work in one stop.

In response to the repetitive tasks of teachers’ daily correction of homework, DingTalk has also released an AI-modified homework product to reduce the burden of teachers’ repeated correction of homework; in order to solve the problem of sharing accounts between parents and children, Dingding has launched a “student number”, which students use. The account login DingTalk will enter a pure version of the operation interface, and parents can choose to turn on and off some functions of the student account.

In addition, DingTalk and Alipay jointly launched the education version of the “Spring Thunder Plan”, which will fund 5,000 schools, 1,000 education and training institutions and 100 education bureaus across the country for digital construction.

In the process of Dingding’s education, it has always been adhering to the concept of promoting inclusive education through digital technology. With the help of digital technology, Dingding not only sinks high-quality curriculum resources into the city, but also helps public schools and teaching and training institutions to improve the level of digital management and promote the reform of teaching models. Committed to becoming a digital and intelligent education service platform in China, DingTalk will also go further in the layout of digital inclusive education.

3. Tencent multi-dimensional efforts to build a smart education system

In May 2019, Tencent launched the education brand “Tencent Education” for the field of smart education, focusing on the to B market and positioning it as a “digital assistant” for the upgrading of the education industry. Tang Daosheng, senior executive vice president of Tencent, said that Tencent Education will provide connections, management, systems and other capabilities for individuals, schools, teachers, and education departments, and use unified connections and interfaces to serve as a smart upgrade assistant for the education industry.

During the 2020 epidemic, Tencent, which is committed to becoming the “most respected Internet company”, actively participated in the construction of smart education, and promoted the fairness, personalization and wisdom of online education through technology. In 2020, as a technical supporter and cloud resource provider, Tencent Education has created a cloud service, teaching platform, information management, teaching AI, and interactive classroom SaaS for the diverse and individual needs of different regions and different groups of people. A series of solutions for schools, teachers, students and parents to choose freely. In the whole year of 2020, Tencent Education helped 3 million+ teachers start classes, served 1,000+ education departments, landed more than 100,000 smart campuses, and guaranteed 100 million+ teachers and students online learning.

Looking back further, Tencent has been investing in the education industry since 2014. The investment track includes K12, vocational education, quality education, language training and early childhood education, etc., and most of the education and training institutions invested by Tencent are in various competitions. Dao’s head brands, such as Ape Guidance and New Oriental Online for online K12 training, VIPkid for online one-to-one, early childhood education for babies to play English, and 100 words for English learning.

In addition, Tencent also has its own education business, involving subdivisions including the child English enlightenment product Tencent Happy Mouse English, K12’s penguin tutoring and English master, higher education new engineering and online education platform Tencent Classroom.

Tang Daosheng, senior executive vice president of Tencent, once said that the integrated education brand Tencent Education “will use connectivity, content, and social responsibility to help the education industry.” Based on cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence, Tencent Education today will still be committed to promoting education informatization and education intelligence.

Four, byte vigorously works miracles

On October 29, 2020, ByteDance announced the launch of a new education brand “Strong Education”, which will undertake all educational products and businesses of ByteDance. In February 2021, Dali Education announced that it will recruit 10,000 people in the next four months. This recruitment covers multiple positions in teaching, research and teaching, R&D, operation, product, and design. After this round of recruitment, the number of employees of Dali Education will be There will be more than 20,000 people. The education field is becoming one of byte’s strategic focus.

In terms of layout education, BYTE has full strategic determination. In 2019, Chen Lin, the former CEO of Toutiao, began to take charge of the education department of ByteDance and announced “All in Education”. In March 2020, the founder Zhang Yiming specifically mentioned in the internal letter of the eighth anniversary of the establishment of ByteDance that the education business will be his key business direction, and proposed that “the education business must have fundamental innovation.”

On March 20, 2021, on the ninth anniversary of the establishment of Bytedance, Zhang Yiming put forward in his internal letter that “do not rely on shortcuts, use less leverage”, emphasizing that product creation requires broad imagination and constant patience, and should not be overly dependent. Methodology. Byte’s ambition is even embodied in the name of the education brand-Vigorous Education is named after Zhang Yiming’s belief in “Strive for Miracles”.

The traditional view is that education is a slow industry. Only by constantly improving the quality of courses and putting effort into teaching and research can we build a high-quality brand. ByteDance is patient enough to do education. Dali Education CEO Chen Lin once said: “Education business will not be considered profitable within three years.”

In addition to determination and patience, BYTE also has a fundamental advantage in education-the power of organizational culture. Chen Lin believes that “Byte pursues high talent density, internal information flow, and context not control; encourages different functional lines to collide, cross-border, and collaborate to generate innovation on a larger scale; adhere to user orientation. These are ByteDance’s unique pragmatic romanticism is also the underlying support for the rapid development of many of our businesses.”

Holding the trump card, Byte accelerates its pace in the education field. At the press conference of the Vigorous Education brand, Chen Lin said that not only after-school tutoring, but also school education and family education are very important. Inside the school, outside the school, and at home, BYTE’s layout in the education field is fully expanded from these three directions.

For school education, Byte has invested in Big Data, AI, Xiaoyang Education, and Minerva, an innovative university; for family education, ByteDance focuses on smart education hardware, and expects to use hardware products to complete the online line of learning scenarios Link. The first smart education hardware product “Dali Smart Homework Lamp” was released on the same day as the Dali Education brand. This product combines smart tutoring with desk lamps and is mainly used in children’s homework scenarios. For out-of-school tutoring, GOGOKID and Guagualong have been launched. , Qingbei Online School, Kaiyan English and other products, the business covers Pre-K, K12, adult education and many age groups.

5. Huawei Technology Empowers Education

In April 2020, the Huawei Education Center was launched with Huawei MatePad, gathering a number of head education applications and many educational resources. Based on technical advantages and multi-scenarios and multi-terminal traffic entrances, Huawei Education Center is committed to forming a model of cooperation across the industry chain from content resource aggregation, content productization, and content distribution, and gradually builds an open education content ecology. Education industry partners work together to provide Huawei end users with a better educational service experience.

Huawei’s education layout is characterized by the simultaneous development of education cloud construction and consumer business, with a selling mindset. Huawei Education Center will help developers build product-dimensional marketing and activity capabilities through openness + support, and maximize developer value. Comprehensively help users plant grass before, during and after learning, help educational partners to efficiently distribute high-quality content to target users, and jointly build a closed-loop education business ecosystem.

In order to deeply empower cooperative brands and build a more complete education content ecology, starting from September 29, 2020, Huawei Education Center will launch an exclusive incentive program for partners-the Sparkle Star Program, through technology access incentives and the number of courses. There are two ways to provide Huawei App Market Yaoxing Traffic Voucher and Huawei Education Center exclusive traffic to partners who meet the incentive conditions.

Since its release on September 29, 2020, Yaoxing Spark Program has supported cooperative brands in multiple dimensions through exclusive incentives, and has attracted 33 educational partners such as Nano Box, BabyBus Nursery Rhymes, Onion Academy, Youdao Premium Classes, and Quasi-Question Bank. Participate and help partners achieve a certain incremental increase in efficiency.

In the future, Huawei Education Center will adhere to the cooperation concept of “openness” + “win-win”, integrate its own technological advantages, multi-scenario traffic entry, and diversified incentive resources, and work with education industry partners to bring better quality smart education to Huawei end users Experience.

Sixth, NetEase replenishes old education business

In December 2007, the desktop version of Youdao Dictionary was officially launched, and NetEase became one of the first Internet giants to enter education. After more than ten years of development, Netease can be seen on all major education tracks, including vocational education, general education, higher education, examination training (language, postgraduate entrance examination, study abroad), K12 education, etc., all have their layout , The corresponding products are NetEase Cloud Class, NetEase Open Course, China University MOOC, Youdao Premium Course and K12 field, Geek Zhan Ji, NetEase 100 points.

After 2016, Youdao launched a large number of education-related content and products, such as Youdao Mathematics, Youdao Spoken Language, and Youdao Translation Egg. Now four product matrices have been formed: learning products, learning services, smart devices, and content interactive courses. NetEase began to aggressively attack the established education business. In March 2019, NetEase announced that the original NetEase Education Business Division product system, such as NetEase Cloud Classroom, China University MOOC and other products, were all merged into NetEase Youdao’s product system. NetEase Youdao CEO Zhou Feng also said that afterwards, NetEase Youdao will focus on the K12 field, continue to invest in content, and attach importance to services.

Talking about why K12 has been the focus of its development in recent years, NetEase Youdao CEO Zhou Feng said, “The reason for focusing on K12 is that the demand is the most intense, the parents are the most caring, and the users are the most caring, so this is the most important thing to make a good product. Fields.” Ding Lei also mentioned in his listing speech, “In recent years, I have noticed that China’s K12 online education is a very suitable point for development.”

NetEase Youdao’s emphasis on K12 has also paid off. On November 19, 2020, NetEase Youdao announced its unaudited financial report for the third quarter of 2020. During the reporting period, NetEase Youdao achieved net income of 896 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 159.0%. Among them, K12 regular-price courses paid 498,700 people, a year-on-year increase of 437.9%; sales were 676 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 368.9%.

Education is a “slow field”, and the level of teaching and research, management capabilities, and talent reserves all need to be accumulated over a long period of time. It will take time to prove whether Internet giants rely on technology, capital, and traffic to build their advantages in the education field.

An Nhien Coffee Tea Joint Stock Company with Anni Coffee brand was established and joined Amazon e-commerce floor in 2013. Revenue and customers from this e-trading floor account for 80% of the company’s sales; Growth rates are maintained from 60% to 100% per year. Green Diamond Production and Trading Joint Stock Company with the brand name Light Coffee also participates in the international e-commerce trading floor of Alibaba and has achieved many positive results in business activities.

Livestream connects with many customers to help businesses increase sales efficiency and reduce costs.

In the context that the world economy is affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the participation in international electronic trading floors helps businesses connect with customers around the world.

Mr. Kuo Yiling, Chief Representative of Asia-Pacific of Alibaba said that Vietnam currently offers over 600,000 products on Alibaba. On average, these partners receive over 50,000 quotation requests from around the world each day.

Customer care and international transactions through e-commerce floors at a tea and coffee exporting enterprise in Ho Chi Minh City.

Mr. Kuo Yiling assessed that Vietnam has the ability to provide competitive goods on international e-commerce floors.

“Alibaba has approached and accompanied many partners in Vietnam for more than 10 years. The number of reputable suppliers from Vietnam has increased rapidly since the first days. We see Vietnam has a great potential for globalization, with the ability to provide competitive goods and the quality of the staff becoming more and more proficient, ”said Mr. Kuo Yiling.

The controversial “choose 1 in 2” strategy in the past five years in China has finally become qualitative in imposing monopolistic business practices, and Alibaba has become the first “victim” to gender. This country’s official “stunned”.

Penalties of up to 18,288 billion yuan ($ 2.8 billion) issued by China’s State Market Supervision Department against Alibaba account for 4% of the group’s 2019 revenue.

The group of billionaire Jack Ma has continuously encountered bad luck in recent times.

Not merely a punishment, the meaning of the case went far beyond its original purpose. This is said to be a warning to the entire Internet industry in China, and the move also shows Beijing is accelerating its war of antitrust against big tech companies.

Alibaba: “Big trees catch the wind”

In fact, legal disputes over Alibaba’s monopoly conduct have long existed. Starting in November 2015, Alibaba’s “choose 1 in 2” policy under Jack Ma was accused of disrupting the e-commerce market and many platforms repeatedly called for a boycott of this behavior.

It was not until December 2020 that the State Market Administration of China conducted the first antitrust investigation and a final decision was made. Basically, Alibaba immediately expressed its attitude to cooperate with the authorities. “We recognize that today’s penalty is a warning and motivating us, it is a standard and concern for the industry’s development,” an Alibaba representative said in the Letter. customers and the public.

In the opinion of many market analysts, that penalty is inherently beneficial for Alibaba, because conservative policies in recent years have made them gradually lag in e-commerce. This also allows the Internet economic platform to re-focus on sustaining innovation, instead of relying on dominant positions to “protect” the market. More importantly, the warning for Alibaba will form a strong competitive advantage in the market in the future.

Other platforms started to be wary

In addition to warning Alibaba, the penalty serves as a deterrent to the entire Chinese internet industry. After all, the problem of monopoly is not limited to just one platform and with the current scale of operations, it is completely understandable that Alibaba is being targeted first.

Over the years, the platform economy has benefited from the rapid growth and popularity of the Internet. Based on the cumulative effect, the platforms quickly formed certain areas, especially e-commerce. Up to a certain stage, natural monopoly properties will arise and the larger the platform scale, the more obvious the advantage.

However, “if the platforms misuse this advantage, leading to the formation of unfair competition, the behavior is suspected to be illegal”, the punishment that the Administration Department oversees. China has proved it. Realizing the risk, many leading e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, Tmall, JD, 1688 … started to change policies to avoid becoming the next victim of the regulator.

The Internet antitrust campaign in China is accelerating

“This time Alibaba was fined and signaled that relevant departments had tightened antitrust oversight of the platform economy. I believe there will be other antitrust enforcement cases in the future, not just this one, “said a researcher at the Center for Intellectual Property Research, University of Political Science and Law.

In addition, strengthening antitrust and preventing capital expansion causing market disruption is also the Chinese government’s consistent attitude, which was specifically mentioned at the Central Economic Work Conference held. at the end of last year. However, from the development context over the years, the monopoly monitoring here still has a certain delay.

With the rapid development and changing of Internet economic platforms, law enforcement or administrative governance need to keep up with the times, forcing the Chinese authorities to speed up the antitrust war. This is expected to create fair competition and maintain standardized market vitality in the future.

Alibaba was fined $ 2.8 billion for alleged monopoly.

JD.com, Meituan and ByteDance lead China’s first group of Big Tech companies to commit to complying with the law after China Market Surveillance Agency (SAMR) asked them to “learn lessons” from Alibaba. Group Holding in Beijing’s latest antitrust investigation.

On April 14, 12 out of 34 tech companies released a public statement pledging to do business in compliance with the law after SAMR warned of Alibaba’s recent antitrust sanctions and conducted self-testing. next month.

Earlier, e-commerce giant Alibaba was fined a record $ 2.8 billion for forcing small businesses to sell exclusive products on the platform. Monopolistic behavior is understood as how businesses eliminate competition of competitors by forcing customers to choose “one of two”.

JD.com has made eight promises including “never taking measures to force sellers to choose either and never abusing a dominant market position or making any exclusive deals. “. The e-commerce group also said it will “never publish illegal advertisements and never sell products of substandard quality”.

Meituan’s delivery staff.

Meituan promised not to impose unreasonable measures forcing sellers to “choose one of the two” and would not abuse its market position to limit competition. In addition, the company is committed to providing full support to the Chinese regulatory authorities. “Once we find evidence of illegal conduct, we will report it to regulators in a timely manner and readily cooperate with any investigation,” Meituan said.

ByteDance, the owners of short video apps TikTok and Douyin, made 13 promises in its public statement. China’s most valuable unicorn company says it will “not illegally collect and misuse user data” and adhere to “minimum guidelines” in collecting data from users. E-commerce platform Pinduoduo said it will “proactively assume more social responsibility”, as well as comply with legal and regulatory requirements.

The rest of the companies are expected to announce their public commitment over the next two days

Beijing’s targeting of key Big Tech firms including Kuaishou, Bilibili and Didi Chuxing comes at a time when the Chinese government is resolutely using antitrust laws and other regulatory methods to halt. out-of-control expansion.

SAMR has accused major tech companies of misconduct such as forcing sellers to choose only one trading platform, abuse of market dominance, abuse of big data to unfair pricing. for certain customers, ignoring poor quality products, leaking customer data, and tax evasion.

“No one is allowed to cross the regulatory lines and not touch the legal red line,” SAMR said on Tuesday.

34 Internet service providers are on the spot, many of which are listed on US and Hong Kong exchanges. Companies were asked to “raise responsibility and give priority to the national interests”.

“Companies must absolutely avoid disordered capital expansion to ensure China’s economic and social security, you must absolutely avoid monopolies to ensure fair competition,” according to Beijing’s statement towards Internet service platforms.

SAMR says companies have one month to do a “self-check and self-repair”, after which the government will conduct follow-up and “severely punish” those companies that fail to address the misconduct.