Author | Liu Baodan From performance to market confidence, Meituan is walking out of a three-year low point, but Wang Xing is not stopping there - he has even bigger plans. Going overseas has become a must for Chinese companies. Meituan, which has been warming up for 8 years, has finally made up its mind to put going overseas on the agenda. Recently, Meituan began recruiting senior engineers for international silver enterprise direct connection. After the model was successful in the Hong Kong market, Meituan officially kicked off its overseas expansion, accelerated recruitment and put the first stop of the overseas expansion in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. Going overseas is a critical turning point, which means that after more than ten years of capacity accumulation, Meituan has to export its local life capabilities to the world, which is as significant as the replication of TikTok by ByteDance. In the wave of Internet companies going overseas, Meituan went overseas later because local life patterns are more important than social, e-commerce and other industries. However, Wang Xing must make this move. Against the background of intensified domestic competition and the shrinking of community group buying, he must find a new growth story. On his entrepreneurial journey, Wang Xing is still determined to create a new business legend in this global adventure. A must-have question. Meituan has fought a beautiful takeaway battle in Hong Kong. On May 6, Measurable AI, a market research firm, released the latest data showing that by March 2024, according to the number of orders, KeeTa, the takeaway business of Meituan in Hong Kong, has a market share of 44%, rising to the largest takeaway platform in Hong Kong. However, Hong Kong is only a stopover for Meituan's overseas expansion, and Meituan has set its real meaning of going overseas in Saudi Arabia. Wall Street news learned that Meituan has been recruiting people around the direction of going overseas in the past two months. The positions include engineers, overseas human resources and operation experts, international payment and transaction product managers, mainly responsible for payments, employee management and related products in overseas markets. More importantly, the recruitment of local talents. More than a month ago, Meituan posted relevant recruitment information on LinkedIn and the Middle East recruitment platform Baye.com, with Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, as the place of work. From the city selection, Meituan did not choose the United States with a larger market space, nor did it choose Southeast Asia where culture and food are more similar, but chose Saudi Arabia. It can be seen that Meituan's overseas expansion strategy still has a heavy experimental component and is more cautious. Wang Xing is not fighting an unprepared battle. For this overseas expansion, Meituan has been planning for many years. As early as 2016, Wang Xing began to consider the issue of going overseas and visited Silicon Valley, Berlin, Israel, Jakarta and other places. In 2017, Meituan officially laid out overseas accommodation business, first connecting hotels in nearly 100 countries overseas to the Meituan application. At that time, the domestic and foreign takeaway wars were in full swing, and with Meituan's listing in Hong Kong in 2018, Wang Xing's overseas strategy was forced to be shelved. Since then, Meituan has also made a series of international investments, including Swiggy in India, Gojek in Indonesia, and Opay in Nigeria, involving food, taxis, payments and other fields, to prepare for going overseas. Along with the frequent news reports of Meituan's victory in Hong Kong, Meituan's overseas plan was finally brought to an unprecedented strategic height in 2024, and Wang Xing once again rushed to the forefront. In February, Meituan put the home business group, the in-store business group and other businesses into the core local business sector, and appointed Wang Putong as CEO, while Wang Xing personally took charge of overseas business, which ensured the landing of the overseas expansion strategy in the organizational structure. In fact, before the confirmation of the overseas expansion strategy, Wang Xing personally visited the Middle East last May and met with members of the Saudi royal family, laying the foundation for Meituan's layout in Saudi Arabia.

In today's weather is good. Today's weather is good.

One is a beverage giant from 1954, and the other is an internet mogul from 1983. Aside from both being referred to as the richest, Zhong Shanshan and Zhang Yiming have little in common. Now, these two business titans are placed into a discourse system in an unexpected way.

On the afternoon of November 20, Zhong Shanshan attended an agriculture-related event in Xinfeng County, Ganzhou City, and called out to Zhang Yiming, stating that the latter had turned the internet into a technical algorithm that toys with the public's intelligence, and he will patiently wait for an apology regarding the harm caused by various rumors.

The public opinion crisis that began in early February has had a huge impact on the Nongfu Spring brand. Consequently, Nongfu Spring had to respond to controversies surrounding Zhong Shanshan and Zong Qinghou’s past, the company's nationality, and taxation issues, with Zhong Shanshan also granting an interview with CCTV for the first time in 20 years.

For Zhong Shanshan, it is crucial to defend the Nongfu Spring brand, as the quality of a brand can often influence the life and death of a consumer goods company, as exemplified by Zhong Xuegao. In this context, Zhong Shanshan launched a series of counterattacks, with Douyin becoming the target of the onslaught as the core public opinion front.

However, if Nongfu Spring wants to regain its former glory, it will face a challenging psychological battle.

Counterattack.

From the short video that has flowed out from the scene, it can be seen that this shout was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but rather well prepared in advance.

Zhong Shanshan bluntly stated that Toutiao is a profit-making enterprise, which is a platform enterprise with enough power to control public opinion, and Zhang Yiming is the actual controller, responsible for formulating the guidelines and rules of corporate civilization.

In his view, this rule applies to everyone, including all kinds of people, and both the strong and the weak; it should provide fairness and justice for humanity. He called for "algorithms to be made clear and publicly announced."

"It is unacceptable to reward and incentivize rumors about traffic with money, turning the internet into a kind of technical algorithm, into a game that toys with the intelligence of the public." In Zhong Shanshan's view, internet enterprises that profit from traffic and produce products must bear legal and human civilization responsibilities for their products.

Zhong Shanshan stated that he would always wait for Zhang Yiming’s sincere apology from the Douyin platform and Toutiao. As of November 21, Byte has not commented on Zhong Shanshan's attacks.

In February of this year, the founder and chairman of Wahaha Group, Zong Qinghou, passed away, and people reminisced about his past. Various rumors about the discord between Zong Qinghou and Zhong Shanshan emerged online, putting Nongfu Spring in the spotlight. As more rumors continued to ferment, the sales of the company's core product, natural water, were also affected.

According to Sinolink data, starting from the end of February, there was a significant amount of public opinion attacks and malicious slander against the company's founder, leading to stagnation in the distribution of the peak sales season. Meanwhile, competitors' salespeople took the opportunity to seize the shelves and conduct promotional activities. In the first half of this year, the company's packaged water sales revenue fell by 18% compared to the previous year, and the operational profit margin of the water business declined by 4.3 percentage points year-on-year.

To this end, nongfu spring launched a series of counterattacks, with the first big move being to clarify rumors. In March, Zhong Shanshan published an article titled "My Three Encounters with Zong" which described their relationship as both teacher and friend, as well as competing rivals. He stated that although the two parties had previously engaged in lawsuits, they ultimately shook hands and made peace in the presence of the main leaders of Hangzhou at that time.

In May, nongfu spring responded to external doubts, including clarifying that Zhong Shanshan had never received a salary from Wahaha and that there was no dismissal for smuggling activities. The establishment of nongfu spring was not aimed at Wahaha, and nongfu spring has never evaded taxes. It can be said that Zhong Shanshan responded to everything.

In August, Zhong Shanshan accepted an interview with CCTV's "Dialogue" program. During an hour-long interview, he narrated the development history of nongfu spring, from the ideal of developing agriculture to continuous losses, and from searching for water sources to the difficulties of building factories nearby. The theme of this dialogue was named "Zhong Shanshan: The 'Madman' of Idealism."

Also in this interview, Zhong Shanshan stated that traffic does not bear legal responsibility in an environment of public opinion, and that traffic must be evil. The water army is just one part of it, but more importantly is mastering the algorithm of the water army, which is even worse.

It now seems that Zhong Shanshan attributed this public opinion crisis to the short video platform Douyin, which had long been foreshadowed, leading to this incident where Zhong Shanshan publicly criticized Zhang Yiming.

Aside from Zhang Yiming, Zhong Shanshan also publicly expressed his views on pdd holdings for the first time. On November 19, Zhong Shanshan stated at a communication meeting that "internet platforms have lowered the price system, especially the price system of pdd holdings, which is a huge harm to Chinese brands and industries. It not only drives out the good with the bad, but it also serves as an industrial orientation."

Regarding the current trend of live streaming sales, Zhong Shanshan stated that he would never engage in such activities and looked down on those entrepreneurs involved in live streaming sales, as they should be able to create more valuable products.

Persistent.

From a humble bricklayer to the world's richest man, Zhong Shanshan built a vast beverage empire over several decades. Unlike wealthy individuals from the real estate and internet sectors, Zhong Shanshan accumulated his wealth through bottles of drinks.

Emerging from such a fiercely competitive field also implies that Zhong Shanshan has experienced many ups and downs since the founding of nongfu spring.

The most well-known event is the 'Century Water War.' In the late 1990s, a duopoly was formed in the purified water market dominated by Wahaha and Robust. Nongfu Spring was established in 1996, during which Wahaha held over 50% market share, followed closely by Robust.

After entering the market through the differentiated competition of bottled water, nongfu spring rapidly rose, but Zhong Shanshan clearly had greater ambitions and began to take initiative. In 2000, at a press conference, Zhong Shanshan declared that purified water is not beneficial to health and that nongfu spring would no longer produce purified water, focusing entirely on natural water.

This caused quite a stir, and nongfu spring received collective condemnation from the bottled water industry. However, it also made more people aware of nongfu spring. Zhong Shanshan took the opportunity to place advertisements on CCTV and other television stations, successfully launching the 'natural water' concept. Zhong Shanshan was also dubbed the 'advertising genius derailed by selling water.'

Zhong Shanshan successfully carved out a new path, from water sources to production lines, from logistics to a nationwide network of dealers. Step by step, he established nongfu spring as a leader in the beverage industry. In 2020, nongfu spring successfully went public in Hong Kong, with a market cap of 370 billion Hong Kong dollars. Last October, 69-year-old Zhong Shanshan became the richest man in china for the third time with a fortune of 450 billion yuan.

However, beneath the glory, a crisis began to approach quietly. Starting in February this year, Zhong Shanshan was caught up in a months-long public opinion storm, leading to an unprecedented crisis for nongfu spring.

In response to this situation, Zhong Shanshan quickly launched a new product strategy. In April, nongfu spring introduced a new, lower-priced green bottle of purified water, marking the company's first return to the purified water sector after 24 years of focusing on natural water. The company aimed to reclaim lost sales from competitors specializing in purified water.

Zhong Shanshan has required the bottled water department to set a "military order", which must reclaim market share through the red bottle natural water and the newly launched green bottle purified water.

Currently, this strategy has shown initial effectiveness. Although in the first half of the year, nongfu spring's bottled drinking water product revenue decreased, it has recovered in the third quarter. According to the latest brand CT data, as of mid-October, the sales of nongfu spring's red bottle natural water and green bottle purified water occupy the first position in the bottled water market, with a total share exceeding 30%, close to the market share of nongfu spring's red bottle natural water at the beginning of the year.

"The bottled water industry will continue to expand steadily, and the company is likely to continuously enhance its market share," sinolink believes. The red water has a natural water positioning advantage, and the company has established strong barriers in aspects such as water sources, channels, and branding, which are expected to stabilize and recover from a low base.

As for the green water, the institutions believe that promotional activities will continue for some time, and competitors, driven by profit margin demands, are unlikely to initiate a vicious price war. The company will still gain a relative advantage against the backdrop of weak demand.

In addition, the penetration rate of sugar-free tea in china has rapidly increased in recent years, and Dongfang Shuye will continue to benefit from the industry's expansion dividends. At the same time, nongfu spring has large-scale products in two major categories, sports and juice beverages, which also have considerable growth potential in the future.

However, Zhong Shanshan is still far from being able to relax. For a consumer brand, market competition, public opinion events, food safety, and other issues are potential risks. To a large extent, the rapid development of this public opinion was due to the company's overly low-profile and even mysterious nature, which sparked public curiosity.

After more than twenty years, Zhong Shanshan has once again withstood the pressure; however, whether nongfu spring can continue to return to its peak remains uncertain ahead.