[Epoch Times September 18, 2021]Hello everyone, it’s 6:30 pm on September 17th, Eastern Time, September 18th, Beijing Time. Welcome to chat about current affairs every day. I am Iris (Tao Ming); I am Qin Peng.
Today’s focus: This year’s worst Chinese billionaire’s net worth has shrunk by 27 billion U.S. dollars, far surpassing Evergrande Xu Jiayin; who is next? The iPhone 13 went on sale in the mainland, and it was sold out in 3 minutes. “If you are patriotic, you must buy domestic products.” Does it fail?
In the shocking waves of purge by the Chinese government, who is the richest person whose wealth has been hit hardest? Jack Ma? Ma Huateng? Or Xu Jiayin? neither. He is Huang Zheng, the founder of Pinduoduo. So, how much influence does the wealth of other rich people have?
At 20 o’clock on September 17th, Apple’s iPhone 13 series opened for pre-order on Tmall. The first batch was sold out in 3 minutes, and it was restocked overnight, making it the number one Weibo hot search. Apple’s official website even collapsed for a while. Little Pink anxiously persuaded everyone, “You must buy domestic products if you love your country!” But netizens refuted it.
The worst of the year has shrunk more than Xu Jiayin, who is next?
Iris: The US financial media Bloomberg’s new ranking today has attracted great attention. Who is the richest man whose wealth has fallen the most this year? I believe it exceeded many people’s expectations.
His personal wealth has lost more than 27 billion U.S. dollars this year, making him the worst hit among the 500 richest people in the world listed by Bloomberg’s index. Xu Jiayin, Chairman of the Big Group. Xu Jiayin’s wealth decreased by US$15 billion.
Pinduoduo founder Huang Zheng
Qin Peng: This person is Huang Zheng, the founder of the e-commerce upstart Pinduoduo. The market value of the shares he currently owns is 35 billion U.S. dollars. Pinduoduo is currently valued at US$125 billion, and its peak market value was US$178 billion. After the listing, Huang Zheng’s shareholding ratio was 46.8%.
The Bloomberg Index also shows that six of the 10 billionaires with the biggest net loss this year are from China. The notable ones on the list are a loss of US$15 billion by Xu Jiayin of Evergrande and a loss of US$18 billion by Nongfu Spring’s chairman Zhong Weiqi. And Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Tencent’s Ma Huateng, their fortunes have shrunk by US$6.7 billion and US$9.8 billion this year, respectively.
Iris: This result is really compelling. Huang Zheng, as the first “post-80s” richest man to start from scratch, accumulated astonishing wealth through the company’s listing in the United States, and became a newcomer in the Internet technology admired by young people in mainland China after Robin Li, Jack Ma, Ma Huateng, and Liu Qiangdong.
Speaking of Pinduoduo, the deepest impression everyone has on it is probably that the things they sell are very cheap, but the quality is yet to be determined, and there are “slashes” in the circle of friends. However, it is such a dark horse with mixed reputation and love and hate. In the current e-commerce pattern in China, it has broken the half of Taobao and JD.com a few years ago.
Qin Peng: Yes. Pinduoduo has created a miracle in the field of e-commerce. After the establishment of Pinduoduo in 2015, with the support of its major shareholder Tencent, the “teamwork” trend quickly swept the mainland, especially in the third and fourth tier markets, and it just grabbed a lot of market share from the big brothers Alibaba and JD.com.
In July 2018, Pinduoduo was listed on Nasdaq in the United States. It took less than 3 years from establishment to listing. While rival Alibaba spent 9 years, Jingdong Group took 16 years.
In December last year, Pinduoduo’s annual active users climbed to 788 million, surpassing the 779 million users of Alibaba’s online marketplace.
People should retreat from the rapids of the prime of life
Iris: However, Huang Zheng has attracted attention in the past two years, and he retired early like Jack Ma last year. Following his resignation as CEO in July last year, he resigned as chairman in March this year and was replaced by co-founder and current CEO Chen Lei. And he is only 41 years old this year. When people are in their prime, the rapids retreat bravely, which is very emotional.
Of course, there are different opinions on the reasons for his retiring. Qin Peng, what do you think is the reason?
Qin Peng: Huang Zheng’s own statement is to be a scientist and quit operations. At the same time, he also announced the establishment of the “Fanxing Charity Fund”, donating 113 million shares of Pinduoduo to promote the development of the foundation, totaling up to 2.5 billion US dollars.
However, I think his retreat is related to the blow to the private economy in recent years, the purge of the Internet tycoon Jack Ma, and the stricter supervision. On May 10 this year, the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Committee stated that it had an interview with Pinduoduo that day, and pointed out that Pinduoduo had problems such as bargaining for new products, inducing consumers, and counterfeit products and counterfeiting by merchants.
Many people have always believed that Pinduoduo is guilty of the original sin, so it is safer to come down early to do some charity and participate in the third distribution. Last month, Pinduoduo also announced that it would allocate 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in proceeds to help China’s agricultural development.
Iris: Well, common prosperity and industry cleanup have caused a lot of e-commerce “bosses” to retreat quickly, so many people are also guessing who will be next?
Qin Peng: The latest retreat is Liu Qiangdong of JD Group. On September 12, Liu Qiangdong appointed JD Retail Xu Lei as the group president. Rumors from outside and in the circle suggest that Xu Lei is actually the grandson of Xu Xiangqian, the marshal of the Communist Party of China.
As for the next one, will the leading figures of Internet companies fade out? The outside world is paying attention to Ma Huateng of Tencent, Wang Xing of Meituan, and Lei Jun of Xiaomi.
The next industry that may be hit?
Iris: Since the beginning of this year, industries such as Internet platforms, tutoring, online games, and online games have been hit by policies. People are paying attention now. Which industry do you think may be hit next?
Qin Peng: Nowadays, the outside world generally believes that the medical beauty industry has become the target of Chinese officials. Recently official actions have been repeated.
On September 14, the “People’s Daily” published a comment that “regulate medical beauty advertisements in accordance with the law”, calling for a severe crackdown on false and illegal medical beauty advertisements to protect the health of the people. Said that the malicious marketing of aesthetic standards and consumer concepts will be rectified.
Earlier, in an official document on the film and television industry, it even pointed out the need to eliminate abnormal aesthetics such as “mother cannons.”
On August 27, the State Administration for Market Regulation of China also issued the “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Medical Beauty Advertising (Draft for Soliciting Comments)”, stating that it will focus on cracking down on false and excessive advertising in the medical beauty industry in accordance with the law.
Iris: Yes, we have seen the Voice of America quote observers analyzing that as Xi Jinping’s strategy of “common prosperity” advances, a series of industries and companies are purged, and China’s medical beauty industry, which has a huge market and business opportunities, may also be in The Chinese government died unexpectedly while performing “plastic surgery” on him.
Which grey rhinos will there be in the future?
So, in your opinion, what other gray rhinos will cause sudden corporate deaths in the future?
Qin Peng: I think there are at least two gray rhinos, and one is the CCP’s common wealth policy. On September 16, the National Development and Reform Commission of the Communist Party of China claimed that the National Development and Reform Commission will further deepen its research on the issue of common prosperity, formulate an action plan for promoting “common prosperity”, and promote the “three distributions” coordinated and supporting basic institutional arrangements.
This means that the blow to industries and companies will not be accidental, but institutional, planned, and step-by-step arrangements. Many industries and companies that have had a difficult time will be included in the new wave of action plans. It is planned to reduce vitality and the market in an orderly manner.
Another gray rhinoceros was that a few days ago, the chairman of the US Securities Regulatory Commission, SEC, said that if Chinese companies no longer allow the United States to audit their accounts, 270 Chinese concept stocks will be forced to delist. When Professor Xie Tian and I participated in the “Talking Everyone” program that day, Professor Xie said that the CCP might be forced to make concessions in the disclosure of information in order to prevent the source of funds from being blocked by the United States, but I am not optimistic. On the one hand, the CCP now has difficulty making concessions. Concessions mean showing weakness and may threaten the CCP’s rule. Otherwise, they will not purge Internet companies such as data platforms, so even concessions are limited locally.
On the other hand, many of China Concept’s equity capital is fraudulently listed, and there is no second option other than death and delisting. Therefore, in the future, this aspect will also cause the decline of a large number of enterprises, and the huge wealth of the bosses will evaporate.
Iris: The intensification of national advancement and national retreat will also cause many rich people to lose their property and even go to jail, right? Many people say that when sheep are fattened, they will be slaughtered.
Qin Peng: Yes. Many people have been saying that China’s rich list is a hog list.
IPhone 13 pre-sale in mainland China was snapped up for “seconds”, website crashed
Iris: After talking about all beings in the financial circle, let’s also pay attention to the technology circle. The three words “Technology Circle” sound very tall, but in fact, what we are going to talk about today is the one that everyone is most familiar with. Maybe the thing you are holding at this moment: iPhone.
At 8 pm on September 17, mainland time, which is just 10 hours before our live broadcast, the iPhone 13 will be available for pre-sale on Apple’s official website and major e-commerce platforms in China. Not long after the pre-sales started, various platforms encountered a “second miss” situation. The first batch of popular pink models on Tmall was sold out in 3 minutes. Apple had to make up for the Tmall flagship store overnight. goods.
Qin Peng: Yes, in fact, this year Apple’s stocks are very sufficient, but there are more people buying it. Some netizens said that more than 3 million people flocked to Tmall to make appointments for the first launch.
Moreover, even Apple’s own official website was not spared. The page appeared to be stuck and other conditions. When it started selling for an hour, the word “Apple’s official website collapsed” became the number one hot search on Weibo. And now, the hot search for “iPhone13’s first batch of sold out overnight replenishment” is still firmly in the top three on the list.
Iris: Actually, “iPhone13 price” has been on Weibo’s hot search before, and it quickly received more than 1 billion page views.
Now that it’s on sale, it’s going to be a big hit, which shows that the domestic fruit fans have not lost their enthusiasm back then.
Qin Peng: Netizens with fast enough hand speed are chuckles. There are also a large number of people who have not bought it. They can only comfort themselves and say, “Just save money.” But there are still many people who are quietly sweating for domestic mobile phones.
Iris: Yes, many people sighed on Weibo: “Domestic mobile phones have to work hard. To make Apple so popular, it’s a long way from it.” But what’s interesting is that with a ding-dong sound, Little Pink is as usual. Joined the group chat.
This Weibo persuaded netizens with earnest words: “I still want to persuade you to support more of the mobile phones of national enterprises. After using Apple for 8 years, I did not hesitate to buy Huawei after seeing the United States sanction Huawei.”
Teacher Qin Peng, what do you say about this?
Qin Peng: Haha. We might as well listen to what the netizens say first. Some people replied: “Ren Zhengfei uses apples.” Others said: “You are paying the IQ tax.”
These comments are ridiculous, but they really hit the nail on the head. The CCP uses so-called “nationalism” to brainwash the people. While it is like a glass heart, it sanctions foreign companies that “injure people’s feelings” at every turn. It also raises the flag of patriotism, as if buying Nike but not Anta, or Apple but not Xiaomi. Love the party” and “violate the country’s righteousness.”
This kind of moral kidnapping can even be said to be behavior kidnapping. On the surface, it does create an environment of public opinion that seems to be truly “patriotic by the whole people” in the network environment. But back in the real world, ordinary people still “vote with their feet,” and the Apple store that should be entered still enters, and the long queues are still lined up. And this kind of argument of “don’t buy domestic products or be patriotic” sounds more like singing a red song in more people’s ears, and it sounds a little ridiculous.
Iris: No wonder some netizens commented: “When you spend your own money, all the leeks are clean.” However, some friends may have thought about it. Maybe there are still many “Huawei fans” who are loyal, support domestic products and abandon Apple.
But is this true?
Just yesterday, the “Wall Street Journal” reported that a Morgan Stanley survey showed that more than 30% of potential Huawei users said that if they could not buy a Huawei phone, they would switch to the iPhone.
This in the end is why? Huawei obviously has the blessing of “domestic products”, and it also has a place in the domestic high-end machine market. Even many people, let alone whether it is a navy, say that Huawei is going to surpass Apple. However, judging from consumer response, Apple is still winning. Mr. Qin Peng, what do you think is the reason?
Qin Peng: There are two major factors: oneself and external factors. Huawei itself is now being sanctioned, and high-end machines have been severely hit. As for Apple, it quickly seized the high-end market with the help of performance gaps and pricing strategies.
Since the beginning of this year, although the cost of raw materials and electronic components continues to rise, which in turn pushes up the prices of downstream consumer goods, Apple still strives to keep prices from rising. The cheapest smartphone model in the new product line is the $699 iPhone13 mini with a 5.4-inch screen and 128GB of RAM. The price is the same as the iPhone 12 mini with 64GB of RAM launched a year ago.
Many Chinese netizens believe that this time the new iPhone does not increase the price, or that the price is reduced after the increase, which attracts him.
In addition, the extremely high stickiness of Apple users also makes it difficult for other mobile phone manufacturers to cannibalize their share in the short term. According to a report released by China Mobile Terminal Lab in April, Apple’s replacement cycle is 27.1 months, ranking first among all mobile phone brands. Moreover, Apple’s brand replacement retention rate is nearly 70%, much higher than the 30-40% of other brands. In other words, even if users change phones, there is a high probability that they will continue to buy Apple phones.
Iris: Is there any hope for Huawei?
Qin Peng: Chips are a deadly place…US sanctions.
Production Team of “Qin Peng Live”
Editor in charge: Li Hao #
.
