Channels have such a high strategic priority for WeChat that its entry point is put right under WeChat’s most frequently used feature - Moments.Ĭombined with WeChat pay, any business can build a full-cycle conversion funnel in the WeChat environment, with text content from Official Accounts and video content from Channels as customer acquisition channels (probably why the name).ĭouyin definitely copied WeChat’s strategy by launching it’s in-app wallet/payment feature in Jan 2021, after acquiring a payment license in Aug 2020. Leveraging its ecosystem of Official Accounts and Mini Programs (read more about the context on these features here), WeChat seamlessly rolled out a new feature called Channels, which personal accounts and official accounts can use to share short videos (and even livestream too). If you think of short video entertainment as an extension of social media, it’s not surprising to see WeChat, the king of social network in China, finally launching into the already cutthroat competition between Douyin and Kuaishou. Still, they have gradually moved on to different market segments: Douyin targets the middle class, while Kuaishou targets the lower-income but much more mass market. Douyin has had Kuaishou as its main competitor in short videos for many years. Like how TikTok dominates the global mobile entertainment realm, especially among Gen Z, its counterpart in China - Douyin, under the same parent company ByteDance (read more about ByteDance here ) - is also a dominator in the Chinese internet entertainment world. Similar to food delivery, the short video is another example of a mobile internet-native industry, originated from the Chinese internet ecosystem and brought to the global mainstream spotlight. Many have attributed the defeat of Eleme to its loss of control from conflicting priorities and resources against Alibaba’s other business units. Now Meituan is widely seen as the market leader country-wide. However, except for in a few cities, Eleme couldn’t keep its original leading position. Since the takeover, Eleme has occupied the primary real estate in the Alipay app - on the top left corner of the home screen, for the optimal entry point and traffic conversion. (You can read more about the story of Meituan in my other post, which I look to provide an update here on Substack soon.) The announcement marked Eleme’s showdown against its main competitor - Meituan, which initially emerged as the Groupon of China, but then pivoted to become the dominator of mobile internet-based lifestyle & services in China. Mainstream penetration only materially reached a new level since more people started working from home because of the lockdown.īut in China, the competition in food delivery had already become one of the central stages of battles between internet giants in 2018 - when on April 2, Alibaba announced the $9.5 billion buyout of Eleme, one of the leaders of food delivery in China. Product Strategy Shift - Domestic Chinaįood delivery in the US and Europe didn’t really see explosive growth until COVID broke out in early 2020, even if companies DoorDash, UberEats, Deliveroo, and JustEat had already had pretty good traction as early as 2017-2018. So let me clarify that everything I’m writing here represents my personal view and doesn’t reflect my countries - China, where I was born and grew up, or the US, where I live now - nor my companies - Adyen and Strike, which are fintech / crypto players, and Franklin Templeton where I select startups for its fintech incubator, as well as the other fintech startups I advise, such as Factor and Bluedot. There is a lot to unfold, and some very controversial topics are involved. Not to mention the booms and busts of the crypto / web3 world and how that impacted the “traditional” fintech strategies of Alipay and WeChat. The fintech revolution has taken place across the world, especially in Southeast Asia, where Alipay / Ant / Alibaba and WeChat / Tencent have invested heavily, but also inspired a lot of competitors Political noises have drastically curbed Alibaba’s and Tencent’s ambition to dominate the online world ĬOVID has reshaped China and the world for the past three years Īnt Financial aborted its mega IPO, detached itself from its founder Jack Ma, and reformed into a traditional financial holdings group
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