Lin Chen continued, "And Mr. Wu, there's something I'm not sure if I should say."
"Please speak, Mr. Lin. I am all ears."
"Mr. Wu, market share can't be monopolized by one company. You should understand that, right?"
Upon hearing this, Wu Bo broke out in a cold sweat. Indeed, he had been in America for too long and had almost forgotten about this. It was a society based on personal relationships, and doing business was not about fighting and killing. Business required understanding human relationships and social dynamics. Moreover, even in a place like America, which was known for its ruthless and exploitative practices, there were still anti-monopoly laws in place.
"Thank you for reminding me, thank you for reminding me."
With the launch of user map functions on major group-buying websites, the group-buying market has gradually formed a situation of "one dominant player and many strong players". The "dominant player" is Lashou.com, and the "strong players" include Gaopeng.com, Manzuo.com, Tuanbao.com, etc. Although the market is still very fierce, it is gradually becoming more stable.
Upon hearing this news, Cheng Congwu of Gaode almost ended up in the hospital in anger. As a seasoned businessman, he had been raising eagles all his life, only to have his eyes pecked by one. However, after his anger subsided, he realized that if this were in his hands, he really wouldn't be able to make that much money. He could probably only sell map resources. It was impossible for him to do what Lin Chen had done. Moreover, Cheng Congwu felt that Lin Chen would probably be able to create even more things with Gaode Maps in the future, while he could just lie back and count his money.
Lashou.com is still burning money. Wu Bo firmly believes that there is no problem that burning money cannot solve. If there is, it means that not enough money has been burned.
At the same time, Lashou.com has expanded its reach to more and more cities, from first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen to first-tier cities like Hangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, and Nanjing, and even second- and third-tier cities, quickly exceeding one hundred cities and fully deploying its operations.
Lin Chen cursed Zhang Xuhao, calling him a complete idiot. "Look at how fast they're doing, and then look at how fast Ele.me is expanding. What's the use of clinging to those few shares? As the market grows, the valuation will naturally be higher. Even if you have fewer shares, they'll be worth more."
Fortunately, Ele.me expanded rapidly alongside Lashou.com. Although it wasn't as fast as Lashou.com, it has at least captured first-tier and super-first-tier cities, and its market value has increased several dozen times.
Websites like Gaopeng.com are suffering greatly from Lashou's money-burning model. But seeing others burning money, they can't stop either. Not burning money and subsidizing means death, while following suit offers a chance to survive.
The happiest person was Huasuan.com. Zhang Yiming woke up laughing every night. The fiercer the money-burning war, the bigger the subsidies from group-buying websites, and the more search traffic Huasuan.com received. Moreover, group-buying websites had to spend money to drive traffic to Huasuan.com. Zhang Yiming was making money while simultaneously advancing his big data precision marketing experiment. He couldn't be happier.
Zhang Xuhao's Ele.me also quietly developed amidst the money-burning war among group-buying websites. Relying on the "group-buying to your door" model, it was all about "eating until you're stuffed." The more money you burned and the fiercer the competition, the cheaper the group-buying prices became, the more users bought, and the more orders Ele.me received.
The first to give in was Gaopeng.com. After all, it was known as the pioneer of group buying and believed that its model was the only correct one, while Lashou.com was just being clever. As a result, it was beaten so badly that it lost its way. Even when Lashou.com's model of merchants listing their own group buying links was already widely accepted, it didn't follow suit and was still sending ground promotion teams to negotiate business door-to-door. Not only was the effect very poor, but the expenses of the ground promotion teams were also a huge sum of money. Most importantly, Lashou.com didn't need a ground promotion team, so it was the same no matter which city it went to. But Gaopeng.com, without a ground promotion team, was like blind people when it went to other cities and couldn't develop at all. It couldn't just wait for merchants to come to it.
Therefore, Gaopeng's market is shrinking, and it has no choice but to cut its losses and abandon second-tier and lower-tier cities, barely surviving in first-tier and super-first-tier cities.
However, in first-tier and super-first-tier cities, it encountered its old rival, Satisfaction.com.
From the beginning, Manzuo.com did not intend to spread across the country like Lashou.com, but only developed in major cities, focusing on the high-end market. In Shanghai, you can see Manzuo.com's advertisements at almost any subway entrance, so Manzuo.com's market share in major cities is not low.
One was a powerful outsider, the other a local bully; they fought to the death.
Some investors saw it clearly: all these group-buying websites, fighting and competing, found that none of them made money in the end. Only Huasuan.com was quietly making money and sitting comfortably on the sidelines. Unfortunately, Huasuan.com does not accept investment.
However, these investors also understand that once the group-buying war ends and only one winner remains, Huasuan.com will no longer be profitable. By then, users will have already developed the habit of group buying, and there will only be one major group-buying website left to choose from in the market. There will be no need to hire Huasuan.com to advertise anymore, and Huasuan.com will have to drive traffic to them for free. Otherwise, where else can they drive traffic? Therefore, in the eyes of investors, Huasuan.com is just a speculator. If they don't want to invest, they don't care.
What they didn't know was that Lin Chen was already planning a winner-takes-all game. All you bettors, just wait and see.
...
"Mr. Lei, it's done!"
"real?"
"Look!"
The product manager of Xiaomi Technology handed the first Xiaomi phone they had ever made to Lei Jun, who took it with utmost care, as if it were a new life.
Upon powering on, the Xiaomi logo immediately catches the eye. Entering the system, the MIUI system that Lin Chen copied did not unlock the phone by sliding the middle slider like the iPhone at that time. Instead, it prompted him to slide up to unlock the phone. The lock screen was also not divided into three layers like the iPhone, but rather a single screen.
The product manager exclaimed, "Mr. Lin's design of the MIUI system is truly amazing! There's simply no comparison between iOS and our MIUI. If it weren't for the gap between Android's underlying system and Apple's, I believe our Xiaomi phones would definitely become number one in the world!"
Lei Jun thoroughly experienced the features, including taking photos, accessing the album, clocking, changing wallpapers, and more. He found it to be far superior to any Android phone he had ever imagined, and the system design was incredibly sophisticated. At that moment, several marketing plans immediately came to mind for Lei Jun.
"Hehe, calling it number one in the world is too much. We should be more humble. Let's go downstairs and find President Lin so he can take a look at this work of art."
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