On November 28th local time, after the release of Pinduoduo's third quarter financial report, its latest market value reached $184.7 billion, while Alibaba's market value at the same time was $195.4 billion. Pinduoduo, the king of Chinese e-commerce, is only one step away from changing hands.
Pinduoduo's impressive performance has sparked heated discussions both inside and outside of Alibaba. On November 29th, an Alibaba employee posted on the intranet saying, "That inconspicuous person is about to become the big brother.".
Alibaba founder Jack Ma rarely participated in discussions on the Alibaba intranet, He posted: Please provide constructive opinions and suggestions, especially innovative ideas. I believe that everyone at Alibaba is watching and listening today. I firmly believe that Alibaba will change, and that Alibaba will change. All great companies are born in winter. The era of AI e-commerce has just begun, and it is both an opportunity and a challenge for everyone. Congratulations to PDD on their decisions, execution, and efforts over the past few years. Everyone has done well, but those who can reform for tomorrow and the future are willing to Only organizations that pay any price or sacrifice are respected. Back to our mission and vision, Ali people, come on! "
Jack Ma's internal statement showed a sense of crisis in the face of Pinduoduo's step-by-step pressure. On November 28th, Pinduoduo released its performance report for the third quarter of 2023 as of September 30th, with a revenue of 68.84 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 93.9%; Realize a net profit of 15.54 billion yuan under the US GAAP standard, with a net profit margin of 22.6%. After the financial report was released, Pinduoduo's US stock market surged by over 18%.
At the same time, Pinduoduo has also shed its previous low price label, and the proportion of high consumption users has increased, forming strong competition with the ecological niche of Taobao and Tmall. Since the start of Double 11 this year, Pinduoduo has announced that its subsidy users have exceeded 620 million, and has emphasized the consumer group from high-end cities. "White collar and middle class workers in first tier cities have placed more orders for mobile phones, flowers, cat food, and health products, while new middle class and young people in new first tier cities have become the main consumers of luxury products such as bags and watches.". Another Alibaba employee also left a message on the intranet, saying, "I have never felt that using Tmall or JD.com is more high-end than using Pinduoduo."
And what Jack Ma said, "Alibaba will change, Alibaba will change," is closely related to the personnel and organizational turmoil of Alibaba this year.
In March of this year, Alibaba announced its largest restructuring plan in 24 years, splitting an Alibaba group into "1+6+N": 1 holding group, 6 business groups, and N business companies.
In May, Zhang Yong, then CEO of Alibaba Group and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, announced that he would completely split Alibaba Cloud and go public independently within 12 months. In addition, Hema will be one of the first three businesses planned to go public after the split of Alibaba Group.
On November 16th, Alibaba's Q3 financial report showed that both plans have changed - Hema has temporarily suspended its listing due to market weakness, while Alibaba Cloud has abandoned a complete spin off and will not go public, but will continue to invest in Alibaba for the long term.
Behind the swing of the architecture is a huge change in the management team. Zhang Yong, who has served as CEO for 8 years and Chairman for 4 years, announced in June that he will step down from these two positions on September 10th and focus on the work of the Cloud Intelligence Group. This arrangement has also become a personnel expectation for the future of the company both internally and externally at Alibaba. However, on the day of the transfer of power, Zhang Yong suddenly stepped down from all his positions, including the CEO and Chairman of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, and was replaced by Alibaba's new CEO Wu Yongming. This caught everyone off guard and directly caused Alibaba Cloud's spin off and listing plan to be shelved within six months.
And Jack Ma's statement that the era of AI e-commerce has just begun corresponds to Alibaba's strategic emphasis on AI e-commerce. At the 618 Merchant Conference in May this year, one of the three major strategies established by Taotian Group was "technology driven". Taotian Group CEO Dai Shan stated that in the next five years, Taobao will achieve comprehensive intelligence and free operation of merchant tools, ultimately greatly reducing costs and improving efficiency for merchants.
At this year's Tmall Double 11 press conference, Dai Shan mentioned AI 20 times in a 20 minute speech, "Taobao is a product of the previous Internet technology revolution and will also seize the next AI revolution."
Before the start of Double Eleven, Taobao prepared more than 10 AI tools for merchants, including AI scene images, AI retouching, AI model images, AI store opening, intelligent weekly reports, business consulting, automatic posting of new content, document interpretation, automatic image expansion, title expansion, and so on.
Two days before the end of Double Eleven, at the Wuzhen Summit of the World Internet Conference, Li Ran, Vice President of Taotian, gave a speech on the theme that the AI era is accelerating and will become a new engine for the development of the e-commerce industry.
In the strategic landscape of AI e-commerce, Alibaba also faces fierce competition from its competitors. JD has launched an intelligent customer service called "Jingxiaozhi", with a cumulative consultation service volume of over 1.88 million times within 10 minutes of the Double Eleven sales, serving over 360000 merchants. Compared to last year's Double Eleven, the number of small and medium-sized merchants has increased by 102%. On the occasion of Xiaohongshu's first comprehensive entry into Double Eleven, it also launched an AI intelligent note taking assistant to help merchants achieve one click release of product notes.
As Jack Ma said, the era of AI e-commerce has just begun.