BAT is competing for mini programs. Who will be eliminated first?

Since WeChat launched mini programs, everyone has seen its huge potential, from waiting and watching at first to competing for layout now. According to news, the earliest batch of mini programs such as Mobike, JD.com, and Pinduoduo have begun to eat the market cake, and more and more Internet companies have begun to vigorously layout their own mini programs.

As a giant that has initially built a mini-program ecosystem, WeChat has brought itself new development opportunities through mini-programs. As WeChat's arch-rival, Alipay launched its own mini-program last year. Although it has been in an awkward situation of being neither hot nor cold before, Alipay's mini-programs have also been making frequent moves recently. However, it is worth noting that Baidu, which has a precise traffic entrance, has also officially joined the mini-program war through Baidu Smart Mini-Program.

After e-commerce, the three Internet giants BAT finally came together again because of the prospects of mini programs. It is certain that one of the three BAT companies will be able to achieve greater breakthroughs through mini programs, but one of them will inevitably be eliminated by the other two soon. In the case that the essence of mini programs is a business of traffic acquisition and traffic monetization, who will win the mini program war between BAT and who will be eliminated first?

Mini Programs are the development trend of the Internet. BAT is competing to be the first to layout just to grab new opportunities.

From Internet companies to Internet projects, no one has not been developing with doubts, including the successful Xiaomi, Momo, Toutiao, and the sharing economy-related projects that are in full swing. The same is true for the development of mini programs that are now presented to everyone.

1. Mini Programs have obvious advantages and are unstoppable

As the first to launch mini programs, Tencent WeChat has gone through quite a difficult journey. Looking back at the newly launched mini programs, which were said to be a revolution in APPs, they attracted nationwide attention and even received praise from a large number of people. However, the development was very different from before. The ensuing doubts about the lack of consideration for third-party power and user interests, frequent disconnections, and the lack of algorithms made WeChat mini programs a target of public criticism. As a result, it was once believed that WeChat mini programs would be another failure of Tencent and would be put into cold storage by WeChat.

However, after a series of adjustments and improvements, and a series of openings made with determination, and then to the likes of Mobike using mini programs to acquire 200 million users, Pinduoduo relying on WeChat mini programs to become the third largest e-commerce company and successfully listed, these large companies that have entered WeChat mini programs have successfully eaten the cake. Mini programs have proved that from the initial doubts to the current revolution, it seems that everyone has seen the huge potential and general trend of mini programs.

2. All BAT companies are present in the battle of mini-apps

Needless to say, Tencent's WeChat Mini Program, as the pioneer of mini programs, has made important contributions to the development of mini programs in the APP revolution that is before our eyes. WeChat Mini Program has also laid a solid foundation for mini programs by leveraging its social networking and huge traffic advantages.

Following closely behind WeChat Mini Programs is Alipay Mini Program, which was launched in May 2017, less than a few months after WeChat Mini Programs were released. Compared with the high profile of WeChat Mini Programs in the past, Alipay Mini Programs are unusually low-key. In the more than one year since the launch of Alipay Mini Programs, its development and response are consistent with the low profile at the time of its launch, and it seemed tepid and was once forgotten. It was not until the recent growth of WeChat Mini Programs that Alipay Mini Programs began to undergo drastic revisions, and Alipay gave generous treatment to the Mini Program entrance.

Although Baidu is not in a hurry, its smart mini program still arrives as scheduled. Although it is late compared to Tencent and Alibaba, Baidu's smart mini program is coming with great momentum. Because Baidu's mini program is the most open mini program ecosystem, it will rely on all the information flow of Baidu system, and has a super traffic platform to run mini programs and load external apps. You should know that Baidu controls most of the traffic in the Internet era. In this way, Baidu's mini program can be said to be a strong rival of Tencent and Alibaba.

Scenario, traffic, and technology determine the direction. Alibaba Mini Programs are hard to compete with Baidu and Tencent

Now that BAT has already entered the market, it is time to start competing. The three key points for mini programs are scenarios, traffic, and technology. These three points will also be the key factors that determine who will win the next and future competitions.

1. Traffic, scenarios, and technology are the three major factors in the development of mini programs

Based on the success of WeChat Mini Programs, it is not difficult to find some important factors for success and some shortcomings by analyzing its development path.

One is traffic: WeChat is a social giant with more than 1 billion active users. WeChat Mini Programs rely on WeChat as an entry point and can be shared to Moments. The number of users it can bring to the companies that enter is naturally considerable.

The second is the scene: the scene presented by WeChat naturally has a natural social attribute, which allows it to bring considerable traffic to the mini program while greatly improving conversion.

The third is undoubtedly technology: the reason why technology is inseparable from the development of mini programs is that if the platform has powerful technology, it can not only make the platform more stable, but also help developers reduce expenses and time costs. Just like Android and Apple, Android itself is an open platform. Developers want to save time and effort to develop APP on the Android platform, but if they want to develop APP on the closed Apple platform, it will naturally be much more difficult.

The same is true for mini programs. The platform has the technology and is open to users. Developers only need to change a few lines of code in the platform-based mini program to simply settle in. This can greatly reduce the cost of settling in the mini program for them, which has always been a shortcoming of the closed WeChat mini program.

2. Compared with Baidu and Tencent, Alibaba's mini-programs are slightly inferior

There has always been a consensus that Tencent's social networking, Baidu's search, and Alibaba's e-commerce. If the battle for the mini-program ecosystem is about scenes, traffic, and technology, many people may think that BAT is evenly matched, but in fact there is still a little gap.

Tencent's WeChat Mini Program has achieved remarkable results by relying on WeChat's social advantages and huge number of users. However, Alibaba's Alipay Mini Program may not be so ideal. As we all know, Alipay, as a giant in the payment industry, has 870 million active users, which is quite shocking. But if it is used in mini programs, it will be greatly discounted. After all, compared with WeChat, Alipay focuses on payment, and the time users use it is very limited, and it is only used for payment a few times a day, and the time is as short as a minute or even tens of seconds.

According to a report on "China's Mobile Internet in the First Half of 2018" released by QuestMobile, compared with other factions, the user usage time of Ali-related products is relatively low, only 6.4%. The low usage time makes it difficult for companies that have settled in Alipay Mini Programs to gain higher exposure, so that fewer people are converted to use and consume in the company's Mini Programs. If we must trace the reason why Alipay Mini Programs have been tepid, this may be a good basis.

In comparison, Baidu's mini program may be slightly better. Since its launch, Baidu's mini program has been focusing on an open ecosystem, playing the cards of AI and traffic. Take traffic as an example. Baidu has opened several super traffic entrances on the entire platform. Its daily activity directly surpasses Alipay, and WeChat is also far behind.

Although the battle in the WeChat mini-program field has just begun, Alibaba is already slightly inferior to BAT. The competition will only become more and more brutal in the future, and Alibaba's situation is still somewhat bad.

In the battle of mini programs, the battle of *** still depends on BT, and Alibaba may be the first to be eliminated

Xiangling believes that the daily traffic is not as good as Baidu and Tencent, and Alipay's payment scenarios also do not bring better advantages to Alipay Mini Programs. In terms of technology, although the technology in the ecological development of Baidu, Tencent, and Ali is strong, looking at all of Ali's products, it is basically impossible to say that they are open. This is the same as WeChat Mini Programs, which are all in a closed state. For example, WeChat Mini Programs are limited to WeChat, and developers who want to enter need to develop from scratch according to WeChat's standards. At the same time, it cannot run across platforms, and if you want to change platforms, you have to rewrite the code for development, which is time-consuming, costly, and labor-intensive for developers. In this way, the limitations of Alipay Mini Programs and WeChat Mini Programs have greatly weakened their own competitiveness.

So in summary, although the battlefield of mini programs has gathered the three major Internet giants BAT, it is still unknown whether Alipay's mini program can make it out of the first half, as it lags behind in the three major elements of WeChat mini program development. So the final battle of mini programs still depends on BT among BAT.

Although Baidu's mini-programs were launched later than Tencent and Alibaba, they have been highly sought after by Internet giants such as Sina Weibo, NetEase News, iCar, Ctrip, Bilibili (B Station), and 58.com since they were launched. After all, Baidu's mini-programs are very popular with traffic, thanks to its open ecosystem. Baidu's mini-programs can be run on Baidu APP, Baidu Information Flow, Baidu Maps, and other portals with huge traffic. As for technology, Baidu itself is a technology company, and the full open source of its smart mini-programs allows users who join the platform's mini-programs to just change a few lines of code. This advantage is not available to the other two companies. At the same time, the AI ​​technology emphasized by Baidu has always been widely recognized by developers. Baidu, which is focusing on AI and traffic this time, is naturally well prepared. Baidu is superior to Alibaba and Tencent in terms of traffic, scenarios, and technology, and is naturally the only giant that can compete with WeChat mini-programs.

Looking at the development history of BAT, the competition in each field has always been a life-and-death struggle. The upcoming mini-programs are a tough battle that is crucial for any of BAT, as they are related to their own ecological layout. If they fail to achieve results, it will be a great threat to their own ecology, so the competition in the future will only be more brutal.