A review of the nine major events in the Internet industry in 2015

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The author of this article is Wen Chenghui, CEO of GiftTalk

1. The secondary market plummeted, and the primary market investment and financing entered a cold winter period.

Chinese concept stocks were collectively cold in the United States, and Alibaba even fell below its issue price. Domestic A shares plummeted, and IPOs were once closed. Affected by the secondary market, the investment strategies of major funds quickly turned conservative (although they still said they would actively invest), and the primary market investment and financing entered a cold winter period, especially the mid-term investment and financing such as rounds B and C. The industry began to return to its commercial essence, and the ability of enterprises to generate their own blood was re-valued.

2. O2O giants merge, large companies enter the market, and startups rise rapidly. These three forces accelerate the transformation of lifestyles.

O2O giants such as Didi Kuaidi, Meituan Dianping, and 58 Ganji merged; Baidu promoted Nuomi, Alibaba promoted Koubei, and JD.com promoted Daojia, and major companies entered the market one after another; startups with home delivery models such as Ele.me, iFreshFive, and eDaixie rose rapidly.

The three forces are accelerating the Internet's transformation of lifestyles in the areas of travel, food, entertainment, takeout, laundry, convenience stores, etc.

At this point, the O2O competition landscape has been initially determined, the window bonus period has ended, and O2O start-ups have suffered heavy casualties in the capital winter. Despite this, wherever O2O goes, people's lifestyles have indeed been changed on a large scale, and the home (home/office) economy has risen rapidly.

3. Mobile payment habits are basically established, and the era of cashless life and Internet finance is gradually coming.

For travel, there is Didi Taxi; for dining, there are group-buying coupons from Meituan and flash discounts from Dianping; for movies, there are Maoyan movie tickets; and for convenience stores and large retail stores such as Uniqlo, there is Alipay. In urban Beijing, cashless life has become the norm for more and more people. With the establishment of mobile payment habits, Internet financial businesses such as loans, insurance, and investment and financial management are developing rapidly. Although the P2P industry is in chaos, after the major reshuffle in 2015, the remaining companies will lead the entire industry into a new stage of development.

4. The growth of large-scale comprehensive e-commerce slowed down, and mobile e-commerce accelerated its verticalization, scenario-based, and socialized development

The growth of traditional comprehensive e-commerce companies such as Alibaba and JD.com has begun to slow down, and consumers' consumption habits have shifted from "on-demand purchases" to "impulse purchases". Mobile e-commerce has accelerated its verticalization, scenario-based, and socialization, and the ability to generate shopping impulses in the process of shopping has become the commanding heights of e-commerce competition. The rapid rise of e-commerce companies such as Miaya, Xiaohongshu, Liwushuo, Youhuo, and What's Worth Buying are good examples.

5. The consumption upgrade brought about by the rise of the middle class will become the biggest trend in the next five years

In 2015, we saw a series of products and services with the middle class as the main user group developing rapidly, including outbound travel, local travel, cross-border e-commerce, media e-commerce, high-quality self-media, affordable luxury brands (specialty restaurants, buyer stores, designer brands), private cars, fitness, etc.

The Internet has almost zero marginal cost, so the user positioning should be based on the largest user group. In the past PC Internet era, Diaosi was the largest Internet user group with the largest total purchasing power, so many people would say "whoever gets Diaosi will win the world". Now, due to the rapid rise of the middle class, the strong purchasing power has made the middle class replace Diaosi as the largest total purchasing power user group. The demographic dividend is no longer a labor dividend, but a consumption dividend. Therefore, companies born around the consumption upgrade needs of the middle class will have very great opportunities.

6. With the explosion of self-media, reading has become completely digital, fragmented, and entertaining, and consumerism has dominated the new generation of young people

Self-media, mainly WeChat public accounts and Weibo accounts, have exploded on a large scale and become the main source of reading content for people. Reading is completely digitalized, and paper newspapers, books, and magazines have withdrawn from the stage of history. Reading is completely fragmented, and the era of reading pictures has arrived. The ability to read long texts and serious texts has declined, and humanities, history, social sciences, novels and literature are in danger. Entertainment is extremely serious, and variety shows, soap operas, animation, movies, jokes, chicken soup, rumors, and success studies have dominated people's lives. The idea of ​​naked, large-scale and self-righteous worship of wealth has dominated the minds of the new generation of young people. People express their worship of appearance and wealth without scruples, and their values ​​are extremely single. Society is accelerating towards the future described in books such as "Amusing Ourselves to Death".

7. Winner takes all, BAT dominates the market

The world is ours and yours, but in the final analysis, it belongs to BAT. In 2015, the amount of investment used by BAT was $11 billion for Alibaba, $55 billion for Tencent, and $23 billion for Baidu. In the entire Internet field, the three giants are constantly dividing up the world. The famous infographic "BAT completely dominates the Internet world" some time ago can explain everything. Baidu focuses on O2O, Tencent focuses on e-commerce, games, animation, and film and television in addition to O2O, and Alibaba focuses on the cultural industry. BAT will also further achieve its strategic goals next year and benefit from the increasingly complete ecosystem.

8. The Internet is entering an era of borderless competition

Uber's localization in China shows the power of the successful localization of American Internet companies. The expansion of mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi in India and other places, whether it is foreign companies coming to China or Chinese companies going overseas, all reveal to us that the Internet is entering an era of borderless competition. Chinese companies will compete with excellent companies around the world, and the world will become flatter.

9. The New Third Board launches the Innovation Layer, A-shares restart IPOs and accelerate the registration system reform, and the great era of capital is coming

With the acceleration of the process of personal asset securitization, the supply of funds for investment in the Chinese market will continue to increase rapidly and on a large scale. The explosion of the New Third Board, the reform of the A-share registration system, and the planned launch of the Strategic Emerging Market will provide startups with more diversified and lower-threshold public listing financing channels. Startups should make preparations in terms of business, finance, and legal affairs, actively embrace the capital market, and use the leverage of the capital market to accelerate corporate development.