The war between Ali and Tencent’s two Internet giants has never stopped.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Hong Kong Stock Research Institute” (ID: Ganggushe).
The war between Ali and Tencent’s two Internet giants has never stopped.
The recent mobile credit payment field is also quite lively. With the launch of the US group “paying the bill”, Tencent has also started to work.
According to relevant news reports, Tencent is in the process of incubating a credit payment product “sub-payment”. In the future, when users use WeChat payment, they may use “payment” to pay first, and then extend the time payment during the account period. The bills are paid in installments and are expected to go live in the fourth quarter of this year. Why do WeChat payments have a huge market share in mobile payment?
In fact, in January of this year, WeChat paid a low-profile launch of WeChat payment points, which is a product of WeChat payment against the standard ant gold service “sesame credit points”, which also indicates that Tencent is early in the field of credit payment. Premeditated, the boss of the mobile payment field is afraid of coveting for a long time. However, in the context of Alipay’s “Flower 呗” sitting on the “credit payment one brother” position, what kind of opening ceremony will the WeChat version of “Flower 呗” greet?
The secret of the WeChat version of “Flower” suddenly struck?
WeChat has long been preparing for such a product. There were also legends in the early days. WeChat said that it would launch credit payment products like Huayan and Jingdong White Bar, but it has not been implemented. It seems that Tencent only has this plan. The low-key WeChat payment points introduced in January this year are the best proof. The credit payment products launched by WeChat are inseparable from two aspects.
1, the credit payment field is profitable. Players have already finished a round of bonuses
In the field of Internet credit payment, Ali has the support of two major e-commerce brands, Taobao and Tmall. JD.com has Jingdong Mall as the pillar, and both of them continue to make profits in this field. According to relevant data, Alipay has a user of 300 million yuan, with revenue of 6.596 billion yuan in 2017 and net profit of 3.4 billion yuan.
Tencent has been eyeing this market. According to the statistics of Jingdong Baitiao, after using white bars, the proportion of monthly average consumer orders increased by 52% and the monthly average consumption amount increased by 97%. There is no doubt that credit payment products can effectively increase the user’s desire to pay to a certain extent, and increase the sales of e-commerce. Seeing that Tencent and JD.com continue to improve and upgrade in the field of credit payment with their own advantages, as the social old brother’s WeChat, it now has a huge user scale of 1 billion, naturally it will not easily give up such a huge city.field.
In addition, recently, the US group also “pay the bill” in the field of credit payment, it can be seen that the Internet giants have already glimpsed the vast profit margin of mobile credit payment. The development prospects of this market have become a reason for WeChat to launch “payment”.
2. Improve the financial technology ecosystem. Credit payment becomes a key step in Tencent
In addition to some of the stimuli in the industry, Tencent itself is also in urgent need of this credit payment product to stimulate the growth of its financial technology business.
From the perspective of some of Tencent’s actions, it seems that it is intended to make financial technology one of the main directions for the future. Since the second half of last year, Tencent has separated the “financial technology” business and become one of the three main businesses of value-added services and online advertising. The financial technology and enterprise services business began to appear more clearly in the public’s field of vision at Q1 this year. From the second quarter earnings report released last month, Tencent’s financial technology and corporate services revenue in the second quarter of 2019 increased by 37% year-on-year to RMB 22.888 billion, especially at a growth rate.
While looking at this area, Tencent has established four main lines of financial management, payment, securities, and innovative finance, and this segmentation business has only reduced the consumption finance. At present, the most suitable growth driver for Tencent’s financial technology business is consumer financial products.
From another perspective, WeChat now has a huge user base of 1 billion and has very high frequency transactions. With the improvement of the business status of WeChat payment and the maturity of the payment scenario, if the “payment” is launched, it will stimulate consumers’ desire to pay, and at the same time, it can further increase the sales volume of the merchants and form a synergistic effect, thereby stimulating the growth of new users. Then, Tencent’s revenue growth will be a matter of course, so the launch of “payment” is also a measure for Tencent to improve its strategic play. Of course, entering any new field will not avoid the multi-faceted challenge, as is Tencent. What’s more, in the mobile credit payment sector, there is also Ali, who has played in many fields. His Alipay has been loved by many young consumers.
WeChat “payment” has a population advantage, but there are still many challenges in the field of credit payment.
WeChat’s “payment” is undoubtedly a declaration of war to Ant Financial and Jingdong Finance, which is influential to the entire consumer financial market. On the one hand, such a huge amount of WeChat entering the market will divide the existing credit payment market, and it will certainly have a certain impact on the corresponding pattern. On the other hand, there are still many challenges in the industry.
In fact, Tencent’s internal attempts at consumer finance have not stopped. As early as a few years ago, the FiT team had thought about re-developing virtual credit card products such as white bars and flower beds. Considering Tencent’s huge user base and the background of micro-credits, the idea was finally rejected by the regulatory authorities.
In the first half of this year, people familiar with the matter disclosed that Tencent had triedIn the “Mobile Phone Recharge” section of WeChat Wallet, the mobile phone staging business was developed, which was operated by Tencent’s new share technology service company, but it was not able to go online. After all the trials, the products failed to go online, indicating that in this field, WeChat wants to set off Tencent’s credit consumption pressure is not small.
1, old players are the first to taste the credit payment bonus. It is not so easy to shake the position
The launch of WeChat “payment” is the easiest to reminisce about Alipay. In the field of mobile payment, Alipay and WeChat occupy the majority of the market share, but in the field of credit payment, Alipay and JD Finance are at the forefront. As early as February 2014, JD.com has launched this new payment method of “first consumption, post payment”, which is also the first Internet consumer financial product in the industry. After that, the ant flower buds were officially launched in April 2015.
With the continuous improvement and improvement in recent years, the two are based on the huge ecosystem of Jingdong and Ali, and they have tasted the sweetness of the dividend in this field. At present, the Internet credit payment, Huayu has occupied an absolute commanding height, followed by Jingdong Baijo. According to relevant information, as of the end of 2018, the balance of white goods revenue was 34.449 billion yuan, and the loan balance of Huayuan had reached 99.2 billion yuan in the first half of 2017. It is not easy for WeChat to want to cross the mountain of the two.
Under the current situation that credit payment is divided by flowers and white strips, WeChat can rely on huge population flow as the entrance, but it is not easy to incite the status of “flowers”. What’s more, Tencent does not have its own e-commerce platform. Although it has developed a lot in the WeChat ecosystem, compared with today’s Taobao and Jingdong, the gap is still very large. Even if it is possible to cut into the application scenario, it will be an unknown number of future development prospects. From these aspects, there are corresponding risks.
Furthermore, after four to five years of development, the flower and white strips have accumulated a large number of customers. In the minds of consumers, they have formed corresponding consumption habits, and the transfer of users is also a problem to be considered.
2, novice players are each sitting in a characteristic ecosystem system and policy supervision in the Internet finance sector is difficult to avoid
In addition to the old players in the above circle, many newcomers are also eager to try and enter the game. For example, the US group “buy the bill” mentioned above. Although the US group is a newcomer in the field of credit payment, the US group achieved its overall profit for the first time in this year’s Q2 financial report. Currently, it has 420 million users and 5.9 million active businesses. No matter what kind of pattern will be formed in this field in the future, Meituan also Will certainly grab the corresponding market share.
The “buy” of the US group actually helps them to build their own ecological closed loop. In order to make the “pay” more smoothly on the right track, the US group increased its marketing investment and chose to sacrifice.Sacrifice a certain profit. Under such an aggressive market strategy, not to mention how many ports can be intervened on other platforms, even if it is based on the needs of the US group’s own users, this will be a big market. After all, the number of users of the US group of 420 million can not be underestimated, “pay” can be effectively intercepted, directly using the US group “buy” can be completed, which is in line with the US team’s own “environmental closed loop” strategy.
In addition, Baidu’s Baixin Bank also began testing virtual credit cards and launched “pay partners”. Ctrip also began to launch similar products. It can be seen that each entrant has a unique ecosystem system. How does WeChat gain more market share behind the industry giants who occupy the hills? This is not a small problem.
It is also worth mentioning that, according to Sina Finance News, in September, TenPay ushered in the first central bank ticket in 2019, and Tenpay was warned for violating the payment settlement management and financial consumer rights protection related systems. Was fined 1.49 million yuan. Before the WeChat version of “Flower” was not officially launched, it received a central bank’s ticket, which means that “dividing” will also face policy supervision problems in the Internet finance field. On the whole, WeChat credit payment is not always going to be all the way.
With the entry of Internet giants such as WeChat, the resurgence of “credit payment” will be re-ignited
WeChat payment and Alipay rely on WeChat payment and Alipay respectively, and in the current mobile payment market, the two have occupied half of each. According to the iResearch report, in the first quarter of 2019, the scale of China’s third-party mobile payment transactions reached 55.4 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.7%, of which Alipay accounted for 53.8% of the share, Tencent Tenpay, including WeChat payment, ranked The second accounted for 39.9%. It can be seen from these data that WeChat payment ranks second in the industry in the form of mobile payment, and its “payment” is also the most challenging Alipay “Flower” potential.
In the Spring Festival of 2014, I believe many people remember the WeChat red envelope sneak attack on Ma Yun Alipay. According to statistics, from the New Year’s Eve to the eighth day, more than 8 million users participated in the red bag activity, and more than 40 million red packets were received. This sudden wave of red packets has made WeChat pay for it with little effort. A large number of users have formed a strong impact on Alipay. Even Ma Yun said that “it is really powerful, and it is necessary to learn lessons.”
Can this “dividend” be a miracle again? Faced with the strong flower industry in the industry and the entry of Internet giants in various fields, it is really hard to say whether it can create a miracle again.
According to the analysis of the new network bank COO Liu Bo, the per-person bill of WeChat payment is less than 1/3 of the Alipay, and the drop rate is more than 2/3. If WeChat launches credit payment, the user’s demand for installment is not high, and the interest-earning assets are not enough, which is almost equal to 7% of the monthly average transaction amount of net loss credit payment. If the monthly average is 500 billion yuan,The annual loss will exceed 35 billion yuan.
It can only be said that Tencent’s credit payment has opportunities and there is also a huge risk. The competition on this track will not be so easy. As for whether it can break the consumer financial market, it will be time to verify. However, with Ctrip, the US Mission and WeChat entering the game, the “credit payment” war will be re-ignited, and the long-term pattern in this field is also likely to be rewritten.