In a sense, the two years 2013 and 2014 were the years when the mobile terminal took off.

In 2013, the number of smartphones exceeded 700 million units and the construction of 4G networks began. In 2014, the popularity of 4G networks was basically completed.

To say that 4G is definitely inseparable from a certain company, but even a certain company did not expect that 4G networks would become popular in 2014.

According to a certain person’s thinking at the time, the popularization of 4G networks would be around 2017 or 2018.

However, with the support of the state, the popularization of 4G network was basically completed in 2014. Except for some small villages, more than 80% of the country can use 4G network.

Although the traffic charges of 4G network are still very expensive at this stage, this does not prevent the huge impact of 4G network on smartphones.

2G can only watch news without pictures, 3G can watch news with pictures, and 4G can watch videos directly.

With the completion of the 4G network, smartphones can be used without WiFi, and you can access the Internet anytime and anywhere. This is a huge opportunity for major application manufacturers.

Byte seized this opportunity in its previous life, launched Douyin, and formed a series of ecological chains by relying on short videos. It successfully stepped on Baidu, which failed in its transformation, and became one of the three new Internet giants.

The same opportunity is now in front of Luo Fan, and in a sense, Luo Fan has a stronger foundation than Byte in his previous life, and he has more cards in his hand than Byte.

For example, XingChat and Xingyuan Pay.

Speaking of Star Chat, Luo Fan remembered some of wx’s recent actions.

In order to improve the competitiveness of wx, Penguin supported Meituan.

During the short period of time during the Chinese New Year, some cities in Imperial Capital and Hebei have already been occupied by Meituan, and the daily order volume is gradually increasing.

Moreover, there are no competitors here. Meituan only provides high subsidies to new users, while others provide low-profit subsidies to ensure sufficient funds for the future battlefield.

With Meituan developing so steadily, the most urgent thing must be hunger.

However, Are You Hungry and did not act rashly, because although Meituan now occupies a large market in Imperial Capital and Hebei, this market share is actually relatively weak.

Because Meituan has been operating for such a short period of time, users have not developed the habit of using food delivery software. At this time, any food delivery company can actually invade.

As long as they are hungry or willing, they can go directly to Meituan's headquarters in Imperial City to start a price war at any time. As long as they are willing to spend money, they can still gain a certain market share.

Of course, Meituan’s early investment is not completely useless. In comparison, Meituan is still the easiest to occupy the northern market.

Not because it has money, but because of the group buying experience and data Meituan has.

In a sense, the group buying field and the food delivery field are interoperable. The experience and data in the group buying field can quickly help the food delivery field.

Alibaba, which is invested in Are You Hungry?, also did group buying, but suffered a huge loss.

In the view of some of Alibaba’s top executives, food delivery is just like the group buying that caused Alibaba’s previous setbacks. It is a deep hole that can never be filled.

It is for this reason that Alibaba has ordered Hungry to not engage in a price war with Meituan now.

This coming and going has actually given Meituan a chance to stabilize the situation.

After Luo Fan got the news, he didn't know what to say.

Once Ali was bitten by a snake, he was afraid of well ropes for ten years. If he was afraid, he would not say it, but he would also do a wave of micro-manipulation. This operation is too top-notch.

Of course, if you're hungry, it can't be wrong that you haven't gone to the north to explore the market now.

Alibaba’s top management’s considerations should be related to Groupon.

This company once triggered the domestic group buying crisis, but it successfully listed on Nasdaq in November 2011, with a market value of 18 billion yuan, which was much higher than the valuation before listing.

Although Groupon's road to listing was not smooth, it was successful in the end.

This wave has allowed capital to regain some confidence in the group buying field.

But when these capitals looked back at China's group buying field, they found that many of the group buying giants they were once optimistic about had all gone bankrupt, and among the remaining ones, only Meituan seemed to be the easiest to succeed.

So Meituan succeeded. With capital injection, Meituan picked the peach.

Now, as the winner of the group buying war, Meituan has detonated the food delivery industry and attracted the attention of countless venture capital investors. The excess capital has once again discovered a new continent.

Alibaba should be very clear that not a few of these venture capital investors will support it until the end of the money-burning war, but in the early stage, they are enough to consume a lot of funds from Hungry?

Therefore, Alibaba's senior management has judged that it is unwise to expand the market in the north now. On the contrary, it may fall into a quagmire similar to the original group buying war.

Luo Fan is not concerned about the actions of Meituan and Are You Hungry? He is more concerned about what Baidu wants to do next.

Previously, Xingyuan Payment was connected to Baidu's payment system. Although the two parties did not reach a cooperation agreement on Maps, as far as this payment agreement is concerned, we are already inseparable strategic partners.

On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, Luo Fan received a call from Mr. Li of Baidu. He said on the phone that Baidu would make new moves. On the morning of the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, Baidu's second-in-command Mr. Xiang would come to Xingyuan to discuss with Luo Fan.

That's why Luo Fan left home on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year.

Luo Fan waited in the office until 10 o'clock, when Mr. Xiang from Baidu finally arrived.

Luo Fan immediately asked Su Qing to pick him up.

After a while, Mr. Xiang came to Luo Fan's office.

"Mr. Luo, I have long admired your name!"

"Me too, I've heard of Mr. Xiang a long time ago."

As they spoke, the two shook hands with each other.

"Mr. Xiang, Mr. Li told me on the phone that Baidu is going to make new moves?" After the greetings, Luo Fan went straight to the topic.

"Well! Does Mr. Luo know about Uber?"

"Baidu wants to start renting cars?" Luo Fan asked in surprise.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Yes or no? We cannot copy Uber's business model, because this is China, and the laws are completely different from those in the United States."

"What does Baidu want to do?" Luo Fan asked.

After hearing this, Mr. Xiang took out a folder from his briefcase and handed it to Luo Fan and said: "Mr. Luo, according to our judgment, although Uber's business model is not suitable for China, it is a very perfect Internet thinking.

.

The core of their operation is to use the mobile Internet in mobile phones to connect users, and then absorb the remaining transportation capacity that is wasted every day, making full use of the Internet to save resources.

However, this model works well in the United States because its traffic laws allow private cars to participate in commercial operations, but in our country, this is currently not allowed by law.

I have investigated several online ride-hailing platforms currently on the market, and some of them directly adopt the Uber business model, but because of this, they are often punished by the traffic control department.

For the same reason, even though the United States already has a mature business model and a giant with a market value of billions, few domestic investors dare to invest because they are afraid that a single policy will cause startups to fail.

.

I think Mr. Luo, you should also know that Penguin wanted to invest in the online ride-hailing platform from the beginning, but later chose to give up after a round of investigation. This is why Penguin gave up.

It was precisely because online ride-hailing was temporarily unavailable that Penguin turned to investing in Meituan.”

Luo Fan looked through the folders while listening to Mr. Xiang's analysis.

After reading the contents of the folder, Luo Fan said with a smile: "Baidu is really good at market research! Where do you plan to start with this project?"

"Mr. Luo, your question is meaningless. You should have noticed that our only option now is to enter the formal taxi industry," said Mr. Xiang.

"This is indeed the only option. Currently, in the urban transportation industry, only taxis are legal.

Although there are not many of them, and they all have local capital behind them, as long as the taxi drivers can be persuaded and given visible benefits, they will definitely join," Luo Fan analyzed.

"Yes, that's what we think." Mr. Xiang said.

Baidu's current ideas are actually similar to Didi's expansion ideas in the previous life. They also chose taxis at the beginning.

"So how does Baidu plan to attract users?" Luo Fan asked.

Mr. Xiang said: "This depends on the combat capabilities of the local promotion team. Currently, the number one online ride-hailing company in the Imperial City is called Baimi. They advertise and distribute flyers at the Capital Airport to attract users.

At the Capital Airport area, the demand for taxis is very high and the flow of people is large. If it were me, I would do the same.

As for other cities, Mr. Luo should have no problem using your Xingyuan technology to accurately push the information, right?

For example, push relevant information about online ride-hailing to those who have just gotten off the plane or the train.”

"Mr. Xiang, the ideas you mentioned are indeed good, but the problem is that what you can think of can also be thought of by others.

Take the airport as an example. If you recruit people here, other companies will naturally do the same. So how can we win when there is so much competition? This is the key to the problem.

In fact, everyone understands the principle of burning money to seize the market, but how to spend the money and how to obtain users and drivers at the lowest cost. Only by doing this can we win in the end.

After all, users and drivers will not look at you differently just because you are one of the three BAT giants, only tangible benefits can impress them."

Mr. Xiang or Baidu had already expected what Luo Fan said. Baidu's top executives were not fools. It was impossible that they had not thought of this.

Baidu also participated in the group buying subsidy war, and I suffered a lot from them.

Later, Baidu's think tank analyzed that this failure was actually due to blind subsidies, which caused losses for almost all companies. Only Meituan, which is good at offline promotion, is doing the best now.

Therefore, Baidu’s plan this time is to learn from Meituan and focus on offline operations instead of always spending money on subsidies.

And there is another question that Luo Fan has not figured out: why does Baidu start with the online car-hailing business?

Is it because you don’t want to face Penguin and Alibaba? Or is it because it involves offline and is a brand new attempt to accumulate experience for subsequent food delivery? Or is it because of Baidu Maps?

Thinking of this, Luo Fan looked at Mr. Xiang and asked: "Mr. Xiang, I have a question. Since Google Maps withdrew from China, Baidu Maps has become the largest map APP in China. Baidu Maps has gathered a large number of users. Your company

Does the taxi-hailing service need to be installed directly on the Baidu Maps APP?"

"Yes, Mr. Luo, you should also know that it is very difficult to convince taxi drivers to join a new company, but with Baidu Maps' coverage among taxi drivers, it shouldn't be too difficult to get them to join.

And in this way, our ride-hailing business can instantly acquire millions of users from the very beginning, reducing initial competition. Why not?"
To be continued...