Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

For large Internet companies in 2022, "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" has become the main theme, and expenses such as marketing and promotion have been greatly reduced compared with previous years. In addition, Tech Planet according to public data statistics, Tencent, Ali, byte and other large manufacturers of products off the shelves and on the new data show that new business is also shrinking.

For example, Tencent announced nearly 40 products (including games) off its shelves in 2022, with an average of 5 products removed from shelves every month. In sharp contrast, there are only a handful of new products launched by Tencent this year, and sometimes it is hard to see a new product launch in a month.

Like Tencent, the same is true of bytes as an App factory, especially in the second half of last year, there were almost no new products in China, while products that were off the shelves or out of operation included recommended products, social products, party islands, reading tools, and so on.

However, compared with the contraction of new business at home by big Internet companies, their overseas business is a different story. By combing through public information, Tech found that the layout of most of the major Internet companies' new overseas businesses and products last year exceeded the total number of new businesses and products in China, covering social networking, entertainment, e-commerce, tools, games, and so on.

For example, e-commerce has the most actions, Alibaba's ALLYLIKE, Pinduoduo TEMU, byte Demonstudio, ifyooou and other businesses have emerged; in terms of social entertainment, byte and Tencent have new layouts, such as singing, close friends, social networking and other products have been launched in Southeast Asia and other regions.

Domestic Internet traffic gradually peaked, many areas and racing tracks into the stock competition. Various signs show that overseas markets and going out to sea are becoming the focus of attention and competition of Internet companies. The Central Economic work Conference held not long ago proposed to vigorously develop the digital economy and "support platform enterprises to give full play to their skills in international competition." Internet companies "sail out to sea" to compete in overseas markets will become the trend of the times.

Although the intensive layout of overseas markets, Internet companies have long been exploring the direction of the sea business, but the new business progress and layout in 2022 is particularly prominent.

Tech Planet combines DATA.AI and public information, according to incomplete statistics, from January to December 2022, Internet companies launched more than 30 non-game products overseas.

Note: the overseas business and product layout of the major Internet companies in 2022. Among them, Ali launched the largest number of new overseas business products in 2022, reaching more than 20, followed by bytes, with 6 new overseas products, followed by NetEase, Kuaishou, bilibili and so on.

The areas and tracks involved include social networking, entertainment, e-commerce, tools, local life, short videos, offices, etc., in which tool-based products and entertainment products become the focus of each layout.

It is worth noting that Alibaba's TUDOO launched more than 10 products last year, more like products made for some overseas enterprises and individuals, similar to outsourcing. It is reported that TUDOO is a platform for overseas catering businesses to provide App building, order trading and other solutions.

According to people familiar with the matter, TUDOO has launched so many products, on the one hand, to take advantage of its advantages in the global supply chain and brands to open up the market of overseas catering service providers, and on the other hand, to provide services for setting up online catering platforms at home and abroad, thus becoming part of its own business growth.

But from the point of view of importance, spelling more TEMU and byte TikTok Now will become the key business development. Among them, TEMU and TikTok Now have reached the top of the list of major overseas applications for many times, which shows that these overseas products have great potential.

A person close to byte told Tech: "Byte social business overseas is as important as it is at home, and it is hoped that overseas social business can become a link between other seafood."

And this is only non-game business, if you include game products, then the game products of Tencent, Ali, Byte and NetEase all increased significantly last year. Ali launched four new games overseas, while Tencent and NetEase have more.

According to the Game Industry report of November 2022 released by Gamma data, the actual sales revenue of China's game market in November 2022 was 19.168 billion yuan, down 3.04% from the previous month and 19.23% from the same period last year. In contrast, in November 2022, the actual sales revenue of China's independent R & D games overseas market was US $1.361 billion, a slight increase of 0.51% from the previous month, thanks to game manufacturers' deepening understanding of overseas markets. Chinese game manufacturers have achieved good results in overseas markets.

In addition, in November 2022, the Top5 of product flow growth in the overseas market was "original God", "tomorrow's Ark", "Sparrow Soul", "indefinitely lost" and "Manwei Snap". The first four games were launched in or before 2021, while Marvel Snap is a new product in 2022, which is distributed by byte's overseas distribution brand Nuverse. Compared with the domestic game business, the byte overseas game business is more smooth and the performance is more amazing.

Go out to sea to find a "cash cow". "when there are not many new stories to tell in China, we can only go to sea, or we will starve to death if we do not go to sea," says one overseas product operator.

Going out to sea has become a key area of concern for large companies, and personnel changes for overseas operations have become more frequent in 2022.

According to a report later on Latepost, Chen Xi, the person in charge of Jinri Toutiao, was transferred to TikTok as the head of product and data science, reporting to Kang Zeyu, head of TikTok e-commerce, that one of the important tasks of Huawei, head of byte human resources, was to support the progress in the construction of TikTok-related organizations, including following up on the recruitment of key positions in the US and European markets. Wang Zhikai, former general manager of bilibili Live broadcast Center, has been transferred to the main international business department.

For Ali, on January 1, 2022, Jiang Fan took over the overseas digital business sector. Kuaishou, on the other hand, transferred Ma Hongbin, the former head of commercial business, to the head of international business.

The layout of these personnel changes also reflects the importance that various companies attach to overseas business.

From the perspective of their respective overseas departments, overseas business is also actively expanding. Such as byte overseas business, in addition to the public well-known TikTok, Resso, will also focus on the development of overseas social, e-commerce and live broadcast business.

An employee of TikTok e-commerce business line told Tech Planet, "the development prospect is good. TikTok is one of the few products that can challenge the two major traffic monopoly camps of Google and Facebook in the international market. In 2022, many senior executives went to Singapore (an important stronghold of TikTok), and e-commerce is one of the core liquidity means of TikTok. The battle between the Internet giants in the international market will be the competition between Byte, Ali, Tencent and Google, Facebook and Amazon. "

In addition, Tech Planet also learned that Alibaba's overseas e-commerce business, Lazada, has liberalized part of HC on campus. An employee who recently left from Ali told Tech, "the overall work intensity of Lazada is mediocre. In the first half of 2022, the work of our department is still relatively easy. In the second half of the year, due to a lot of promotion, we often work overtime. But I heard that the data of last year's promotion is good, and the business is growing rapidly." At the same time, he also mentioned that Lazada will focus on the Southeast Asian market in the future.

Pinduoduo's new business TEMU launched overseas in the second half of 2022 has also attracted much attention. A source said that pinduoduo will strengthen the construction of overseas supply chain this year, which will help enhance the price advantage and attract more overseas users to buy.

In addition to Ali, byte, pinduoduo, Tencent, NetEase is a heavy warehouse of overseas game business. Last year, Tencent invested in more than a dozen game companies, including FromSoftware, overseas.

NetEase also changed the way he used to play. Prior to this, the Japanese market still accounted for the majority of NetEase's game revenue, but recently NetEase hopes to explore more overseas markets. In 2022, NetEase wholly acquired Quantic Dream, a game studio based in France, and set up a first-party studio in the United States, as well as a minority stake in Swedish game developer Liquid Swords. Various actions show that NetEase wants to create a game market similar to that of Japan in Europe, America and other places.

An industry source said that because of the limited number of domestic games, most game companies are now thinking about going out to sea first. Agent distribution, self-research and so on are the next things to do. Compared with the past, big companies may invest more resources in overseas game business in the future.

How to show your skills and tell the new story of going out to sea? Many seafood from big Internet companies have become local favorite apps. In the United States, 2/3 of American teenagers use TikTok, which has become the second most popular application in the world.

Ali's Lazada is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia. According to Lazada, 12 hours before the launch of "double 11" in 2022, about 2/3 of Lazada merchants' orders increased at least three times compared with the same period of time on weekdays, and consumers in Southeast Asia spent as much as 40 times when watching Lazada live LazLive. Another cross-border e-commerce platform, AliExpress, has become the "international version of Tmall" in Europe, the United States and Russia.

With the rapid growth of sea business, big companies see new prospects even more. However, the increased risk of uncertainty in the international situation and competition pattern also makes the overseas business of platform enterprises such as Internet companies face regulatory pressure. Chinese Internet platform companies not only have to compete with overseas companies, but also face the challenge of stricter regulation by local governments, and this trend is likely to continue.

To this end, many Internet companies have begun to lay out in Southeast Asia and Africa, where the environment is relatively relaxed, such as the Southeast Asian market, ushering in Byte, bilibili's new business-- byte recommended product "Lemon8" and bilibili's cartoon business and editing tool Viddup, in which Lemon8 has a cumulative download volume of more than one million. In addition, big companies have also taken a fancy to the entertainment market in Southeast Asia, including Tencent China Literature and Byte, and have launched a lot of novel products, which have long occupied a high position in the ranking of entertainment applications in some Southeast Asian countries.

Of course, many overseas businesses of large factories are also gradually recruiting to local people, integrating products into the local culture and promoting the faster development of products.

During the three years of the epidemic, both the business layout and the competition pattern, the domestic Internet market has undergone earth-shaking changes, and the exploration of new business has slowed down, focusing more on the main business that can and has been profitable. Before finding the next new tuyere, the big factory is expected to continue to "reduce costs and increase efficiency".

With the policy to encourage large Internet companies and platform enterprises to show their skills in international competition, and the vast space for overseas markets, it is expected that large companies will carry out more layout overseas. Whether we can tell the new story of going out to sea depends on how the big companies "show their talents".

This article is from the official account of Wechat: Tech (ID:tech618). By Chen Qiaohui.

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