Since 2021, "internet plus-related" has been the trend in the internet industry, and with the peak of traffic dividends, major companies are continuing to seek incremental growth and following the trend of "internet plus-related" has become an inevitable choice.
The introduction of WeChat Pay by Taobao, the opening of Alipay mini programs by Meituan Takeout and hotels, these actions can be seen as important milestones in payment interoperability.
Today, major internet companies have made significant progress in "internet plus-related".
After 11 years, Taobao and WeChat have formally established interconnection. Taobao Tmall announced that in order to enhance the consumer shopping experience, Taobao plans to add WeChat Pay capabilities and adjust platform rules after the end of the consultation period. It is reported that this adjustment will cover all Taobao and Tmall merchants.
In response to this, relevant parties have also made responses. WeChat Pay responded that the functional compatibility with Taobao platform merchants is currently being opened, please pay attention to the announcements on the Taobao platform for specific launch time. Taobao Tmall also responded, always upholding the concept of open cooperation, actively exploring interoperability with various platforms, continuously improving the shopping experience for consumers, making consumers' shopping more convenient, enjoyable, and efficient. Alipay stated that openness creates a greater future, and Alipay will increase open cooperation in internet technology, AI technology products, and a wider ecosystem.
In fact, it's not just $BABA-W (09988.HK)$Please use your Futubull account to access the feature.$TENCENT (00700.HK)$ , $BIDU-SW (09888.HK)$Please use your Futubull account to access the feature.$MEITUAN-W (03690.HK)$$拼多多(PDD.US)$$KUAISHOU-W (01024.HK)$2024年618前，阿里妈妈生态内容营销中心旗下“淘宝星任务”与巨量星图启动深度合作，双方共同推出全链路内容营销线上解决方案“星立方计划”。 通过这一计划，商家可以更直观、高效地进行“抖音种草、淘宝成交”的效果跟踪。
"In terms of actual effects, Taobao has actually introduced more payment companies before, and Alipay has also integrated new payment channels for Taobao more than once." Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry at Boldtek, believes that Taobao introducing WeChat Pay, Meituan Takeout and hotels opening Alipay mini programs can be seen as a relatively important milestone event for payment interconnection. It has set an example for future cooperation between more payment tools and platforms, as well as between platforms. Cross-platform and cross-payment tool cooperation not only helps to improve payment convenience, but also promotes consumption release, which is in line with the original intention of regulatory requirements for interconnection.
Alibaba and Tencent have put their differences aside.
The dispute between Alibaba and Tencent has a long history.
After the launch of Taobao APP and WeChat APP, although one focuses on online shopping business and the other on instant messaging, with the rapid expansion of user bases for both platforms, sharing online shopping links on WeChat has become a habit for many people.
However, with the emergence of Alipay and the launch of WeChat Pay, Alibaba and Tencent have become direct competitors in electronic payment channels. They have begun a long battle to attract users and expand merchant coverage.
At the end of July 2013, Alibaba announced the suspension of all third-party app services related to WeChat and cut off all WeChat data interfaces. Taobao sellers subsequently received a ban prohibiting them from posting WeChat QR codes. In November 2013, WeChat blocked Alibaba's instant messaging app "Laiwang", making it impossible to directly open Taobao store links on WeChat. Links guiding users to download Taobao were also blocked, and they could only be opened by copying and pasting the links into a browser.
In the first few years when both platforms were blocking each other, it did play a role in protecting their own traffic ecosystems. However, with the deepening development of the Internet, the mutual blocking caused a significant digital divide and resulted in a poor user experience.
On September 9, 2021, relevant departments of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized a "Administrative Guidance Meeting on the Issue of Blocking Website Links" with internet companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi, Momo, 360, and NetEase. At the meeting, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology required all platforms to lift the blocking by September 17 according to the standards; otherwise, they would be dealt with in accordance with the law.
In August of that year, Taobao App integrated with UnionPay Cloud QuickPass. At the same time, Alibaba's other applications like Ele.me, Youku, Damai, Kaola, and Shuqi had all integrated with WeChat Pay. Apps like Taote, Xianyu, and Hema had also applied to integrate with WeChat Pay and were waiting for WeChat's approval.
In late November 2021, WeChat allowed the opening of shopping and video links from external apps such as Taobao and Douyin in one-on-one chat scenes.
During the earnings conference that year, Zhang Yong, the CEO of Alibaba at the time, said, "The social value generated by the big circulation between platforms is definitely much greater than the small circulation within a single platform. If platforms can be interconnected, it will undoubtedly bring new reform dividends." Liu Chiping, the President of Tencent, also revealed during the same earnings conference that platform interconnectivity is a very complex issue that needs to be discussed and resolved over time. If these issues are not handled well, it will be detrimental to our users and the many small and medium-sized brands and merchants on our platform.
Since last year, there have been many interconnections of information released on the Taobao platform.
On September 25, 2023, Alibaba Mama further deepened cooperation with Tencent Advertising: quality advertising traffic such as WeChat Video Accounts, Moments, and Mini Programs can be directly linked to Taobao, Tmall merchants' stores, product details, and Taobao live broadcast rooms through Alibaba Mama's UD effect delivery.
In October of last year, many netizens reported that the Taobao payment page had the option of "WeChat Scan Code Payment". However, at that time, Taobao customer service stated that the WeChat Scan Code Payment function was still gradually opening up and was currently only open to some users, and only some products supported this payment method.
According to the information feedback from Taobao customer service, in order to use WeChat Scan Code Payment on Taobao in its entirety, you can use the QR code image provided by Taobao for WeChat Scan Code Payment, but it does not support automatically redirecting to WeChat for payment. Users can copy the link and send it to WeChat friends for payment. Overall, both methods are not considered simple.
2024年618前，阿里妈妈生态内容营销中心旗下“淘宝星任务”与巨量星图启动深度合作，双方共同推出全链路内容营销线上解决方案“星立方计划”。 通过这一计划，商家可以更直观、高效地进行“抖音种草、淘宝成交”的效果跟踪。
This move is also seen by the industry as a "prelude" to the interconnection between the Taobao APP and WeChat payment.
The big players are further "tearing down the walls".
Since 2021, "interconnection" has been the trend in the internet industry, and with the peak of traffic dividends, the big players continue to seek increments, and following the trend of interconnection has become an inevitable choice.
Taking Tencent as an example, the company disclosed revenue of 161.117 billion yuan in the second quarter financial report this year, a year-on-year growth of 8%, but gross profit increased by 21% year-on-year to 85.895 billion yuan, and net income (Non-IFRS) increased by 53% year-on-year to 57.313 billion yuan.
Although Tencent's profitability continues to grow, the overall revenue growth has remained in single digits for several consecutive quarters. At the same time, the growth rate of its financial technology service revenue has slowed to low single-digit percentages, and the growth rate of commercial payment revenue has further slowed down, reflecting slow consumer spending growth.
All these signs indicate that Tencent, along with its subsidiary WeChat Pay, have encountered bottlenecks. After this interconnection, the trillion-dollar trading volume of Taobao can clearly help WeChat Pay expand the incremental market. For Alibaba, this cooperation helps enhance user stickiness. In the lower-tier market where WeChat has higher coverage, Taobao can also attract more users through this.
Wang Pengbo stated that WeChat Pay becoming the payment service provider for Taobao can be seen as a win-win situation for multiple parties. Introducing WeChat Pay to Taobao will further 'liberate' Alipay. With some previously unclear agreements between the two sides which did not involve each other's business areas, as both sides develop more independently, the incremental businesses that Alipay could not previously do can also be significantly promoted. It is expected that e-commerce-related businesses will gradually increase in revenue share of Alipay.
Currently, not only Alibaba and Tencent, but also Baidu, Meituan, Alipay, Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, and many other major companies in the industry have all followed suit in 'interconnection.'
On December 27, 2021, Kuaishou and Meituan announced reaching a strategic cooperation for interconnection. They will leverage the Kuaishou open platform to connect content scene marketing, online transactions, and offline fulfillment services. In July of this year, the two parties renewed the agreement.
Before the 618 in 2024, Alibaba Mama's ecological content marketing center's "Taobao Star Mission" and Giant Star Map launched a deep cooperation, jointly launching the full-chain content marketing online solution "Star Cube Plan". Through this plan, merchants can track the effect of "Douyin seeding, Taobao transaction" more intuitively and efficiently.
As of the time of publication, Alipay mini-programs for Meituan's six core businesses, including "Meituan Takeaway", "Meituan Pharmacy", "Meituan Powerbank", "Meituan Bike", "Meituan Run Errands", and "Meituan Hotel", has been launched. Among them, Meituan Powerbank and Meituan Bike Alipay mini-programs have recently reached high visit numbers of 4 million+. Meituan Takeaway Alipay mini-program has also been used by over 1 million people recently.
Clearly, seeking new development space through "interconnection" cooperation has gradually become the consensus of Internet giants. Industry insiders generally believe that with the addition of WeChat Pay by Taobao and the deep cooperation between Meituan and Alipay, China's Internet will usher in a new round of "interconnection", bringing multiple wins for all parties involved.
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