4/15 TBC Insider Digest
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Insider Digest 4/15/21: Alibaba & Ant Remedies, Rumored ByteDance Data, and More
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Alibaba and Ant Antitrust Remedies
Summary of Alibaba’s record fine & Ant restructuring proposal. You might also have read me on BBC or heard me on Marketplace and know what I think about all this. (Or guessed it, from what I wrote on antitrust last December!) But what’s perhaps more interesting is talking about Alibaba’s longer term prospects, which I invite you to do here in GF’s thread. It is based on his writeup of the company, Alibaba at a Crossroads. Do you agree, disagree? Jump in!
Rumored ByteDance Data
I personally thought this was the highlight of this digest, but your mileage may vary! This was briefly up on a WeChat Official Account then deleted, but not before it made its way through some chat groups and to me. I do not know if the data is accurate. The only thing I can say is that it is pretty dang detailed and it looks reasonable, because it is very much in line with my long time following the company. Ecommerce is the segment to watch, and search is very strong. Education is hit hard by policy changes sector wide, and gaming is growing (well, ByteDance just bought yet another gaming company).
Read it, or do not read it, at your own peril!
SF Express (Logistics) Announces Record Loss
On 4/9/21, SF Express, the largest logistics company by market capitalization in China and widely considered the industry leader, announced that they would experience a loss of ~$140-170mm USD, its first loss since 2009. The market cap sits at about $50Bn today, down 38% from its high on 2/18/21.
The reason why this news is interesting is because logistics in China is closely related to if not downright dependent on e-commerce. Supposedly, 80%of the kuaidi logistics business in China comes from e-commerce (in Chinese). By 2019, it was obvious that SF's growth had been below industry average because it had been slow to adapt to the "low price ecommerce" business that its competitors were fighting over.
Fun Video (PR) on China’s Domestic Beauty Industry
Thanks John Dawson for sharing this video that is mostly PR, but nonetheless reflects the true attitudes of Chinese consumers who, until recently, very much shunned local brands due to the perception of low quality. Comes with English captions.
External Links:
Our own Zak Dychtwald’s article in HBR on China’s Innovation Advantage, in which he argues that China has one thing no one else does … hundreds of millions of hyper-adaptive, hyper-adoptive consumers because they’ve lived through so much change in the last 30 years (and seen their GDP per capita go up 30X+) that they are willing to try anything!
That’s it! Please check the forums for amazing contributions from our members and join the WhatsApp group!
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