Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, elephants turning around
If one word were to describe Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com today, "digital economy" would undoubtedly be the most fitting.
Whether in terms of scale or their profound impact on people's production and daily lives, they all demonstrate this point.
However, the reshuffling and adjustment period of the past few years has made Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com realize that merely clinging to the digital economy and being a virtual existence cannot ensure long-term development—it might even lead them into a dead end.
Thus, we see players represented by Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com no longer limiting themselves to being simple platforms or hubs but instead seeking new ways to integrate with the real economy and industries.
Whether it's Alibaba's deep empowerment of the real economy through AI, Tencent's revitalized development path with AI, or JD.com's new procurement and sales model powered by AI, we can observe a new transformation—one that embraces the real economy and industries—unfolding within these companies.
As the saying goes, "It's lonely at the top."
Digital economy giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com were the first to perceive the drawbacks of the classic internet model, prompting them to proactively embrace the real economy.
Through their embrace of the real economy, we shouldn't just see the challenges they face but also recognize the profound changes happening in the internet industry through this new trend.
The Internet No Longer Works
One major reason why internet giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com grew into massive digital economies is that they leveraged internet technology and models to enhance production and life efficiency.
In an era when the internet was still full of abundant dividends, it was almost a panacea for solving industry pain points and challenges.
Whether it was Alibaba and JD.com revolutionizing shopping or Tencent transforming social interactions and lifestyles, all demonstrated this.
However, the internet's effectiveness relied on a major premise: it needed capital and traffic dividends, as well as information asymmetry between supply and demand.
When these prerequisites for rapid internet development vanished, even the internet that once built giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com became ordinary.
At the peak of mobile internet development, the chaos we witnessed was a direct reflection of this phenomenon.
When the internet no longer improved production and life efficiency but instead became a roadblock, it showed us a clear sign—the internet no longer works.
To break free from this dilemma, we must step beyond the internet's constraints and seek solutions from a new perspective.
Against this backdrop, we see the gradual clarity of new development directions like AI large models, with players like Baidu and Tencent focusing on AI.
Although Alibaba went through a period of exploration, it, too, eventually embraced AI alongside Baidu and Tencent.
When Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com simultaneously focus on AI, what we see is AI replacing the internet.
Today, AI has replaced the internet as the scalpel for solving industry pain points and challenges.
With AI taking the lead, players like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com have begun embracing the real economy.
Unlike the internet era, success in the AI era requires these players not to stand apart from industries but to deeply integrate with the real economy.
Therefore, if we seek the new trends revealed by Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com's embrace of the real economy, the decline of the internet and the rise of AI are undoubtedly key aspects to watch.
Platforms and Hubs Are No Longer the Mainstream
If we were to summarize and define digital economies like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com, "platforms and hubs" would be the most vivid and accurate description.
Under these platforms and hubs, almost all human needs could be met—a vast ecosystem encompassing everything.
However, we must also recognize that behind these digital economies, they primarily served as matchmakers and intermediaries without fundamentally changing upstream production methods.
While information asymmetry persisted, especially when consumer demands remained unchanged and platform-centric supply models still had dividends, the development model led by Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com retained some potential.
But when platform-centric supply models became oversaturated and even hindered efficiency, these digital economies had to abandon this approach.
It is against this backdrop that we see players like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com fully embracing the real economy.
Whether it's Alibaba's smart factories, Tencent's deep empowerment of B2B through its accumulated expertise, or JD.com's full-chain model leveraging its natural ties to supply chains, we can observe these former benchmarks of platforms and hubs shifting away from that model toward decentralization.
Thus, another implication of Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com's embrace of the real economy is that platform- and hub-centric models are no longer mainstream, replaced by digital-real integration and decentralization.
Scale Efficiency Begins to Fail
Looking back at the development of Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com, we see they followed a path of scaling up to improve efficiency.
In a sense, their efficiency gains came from aggregating demand on their platforms and building massive systems.
As mentioned earlier, in an era of information asymmetry, scaling up to boost efficiency worked.
But once information asymmetry was broken, especially when supply became oversaturated, scale efficiency began to fail.
Solving this requires supply-side reform.
In this reform, players like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com no longer focus solely on expansion but instead dig deeper into specific points.
In this trend, relying solely on "internet +" is insufficient—it demands deep integration into industries, processes, and minutiae.
It is under these circumstances that we see these players embracing the real economy.
Therefore, if we seek the underlying logic behind Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com's embrace of the real economy, the failure of scale efficiency is a key aspect. If scaling up no longer works, how can efficiency be improved again?
Through their explorations, we see that embedding themselves in industrial operations and building multi-dimensional, full-process connections with industries is the way forward.
If we were to summarize this new efficiency-boosting method, "industry-driven efficiency improvement" would be the most fitting.
Driven by this approach, we see these players embracing industries, witnessing industrial transformation, and observing the deep integration of the digital and real economies through AI.
Conclusion
Alibaba invests in the real economy, Tencent revitalizes with new sprouts, and JD.com doubles down on procurement and sales—we see them increasingly embracing the real economy.
As digital-real integration becomes a trend, the once-thriving internet model fades away.
For digital economies like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com, as well as real economies in need of change, this is a brand-new transformation.
In this transformation, previously reliable development models fail, once-infallible internet technologies falter, and former rivals shake hands.
Thus, a new era begins.$Alibaba(BABA.US)
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