Video accounts are not just Tencent’s hope

Ma Huateng said bluntly: Video Account is the hope of the entire company. This sentence went viral in the WeChat Moments in a short period of time. Some friends who are optimistic about Video Account even regarded this sentence as a signal. In their opinion, Video Account surpassing TikTok seems to be just around the corner. Next, the author analyzes the value of Video Account for us, let's take a look.

At the Tencent employee conference on December 15, Ma Huateng bluntly stated: Video Account is the hope of the entire company.

This sentence went viral on WeChat Moments in a short period of time. Some friends who are optimistic about Video Account even regarded this sentence as a signal. In their view, it seems that it is just around the corner for Video Account to surpass TikTok.

In my opinion, Pony Ma’s words have no value in themselves.

However, if we combine this sentence with the current Internet ecology and the current macroeconomic situation, it is very necessary to study it, because after further study, we will find that Video Account is no longer just Tencent’s hope.

1. Video Accounts for the Entire Tencent Empire

In the third quarter financial report, Tencent's total revenue was still 140.1 billion. Although it was down year-on-year, it was still a huge amount.

For Tencent, the pressure lies in the slowdown or even stagnation of growth. However, the crisis of life and death is far from appearing.

For Tencent, there are still many potential growth points, such as the WeChat search ads they launched and the regular game licenses they still have.

However, these conventional growth points are all based on Tencent’s existing traffic pool and belong to the growth within the first curve of Tencent’s existing business. The growth rate is limited and difficult to maintain.

Video accounts are different. They explore new traffic pools and different user scenarios. For the entire Tencent empire, video accounts have three values.

1. Growth curve: Video accounts are expected to become the second curve

As a listed Internet company, Tencent's main task is to maintain growth, because growth means a stable stock price.

Even if it cannot bring about substantial growth, it is necessary to let the market see the possibility of growth, and Video Account is that possibility.

The second quarter financial report shows that the total video playback volume increased by more than 200% year-on-year, and the daily active creators and daily video uploads increased by more than 100% year-on-year. The data is encouraging enough.

If nothing unexpected happens, the number of users of Video Account will increase by at least 100% throughout 2022.

In other words, Video Account has brought the light of hope to the Tencent Empire, a second curve that may be established.

2. Fulfilling the dream of e-commerce: the link value of video accounts

On the surface, Video Account is a content platform that is shaking up the content industry.

In fact, the current content platform has long been more than just a content link. Any content platform corresponds to a business ecosystem.

Tencent is expected to challenge its e-commerce business, which has failed many times, through the link value of video accounts. E-commerce business is one of the few business models that can form a closed loop since the development of the Internet. The e-commerce dream is not realized. In the eyes of many people, Tencent is just a traffic seller after all.

3. Attacking ByteDance: The strategic value of video accounts

In the Internet age, whoever has the traffic will always win the world.

Before ByteDance emerged, almost all mobile Internet traffic belonged to Tencent or companies invested by Tencent.

The emergence of ByteDance has changed the pattern of mobile Internet traffic.

Tencent hopes to maintain its leading position in the traffic ecosystem in the mobile Internet era, and they need to compete with ByteDance in terms of user retention time.

Although Video Account may not necessarily help Tencent win in the end, it at least gives Tencent the opportunity to compete with ByteDance.

2. Video Accounts in the Entire Internet Universe

Since TikTok, there has not been any product in the Internet circle that is eye-catching enough, and even small and beautiful products are almost rare.

This also leads to the fact that the current Internet universe is almost entirely dominated by super giants.

Douyin has created its own business empire, WeChat has created its own business empire, and a large number of small and micro enterprises have begun to rely on these two super products to build their own businesses.

This type of micro-enterprise is called a clover-type enterprise or a flea-type enterprise by Charles Handy. Of course, more people call it a super-enterprise.

The advantage of this business model is that the startup cost is low. Of course, there is also an obvious disadvantage, that is, the entire market lacks innovation and vitality.

Whether in the WeChat ecosystem or the Douyin ecosystem, there are a large number of homogeneous businesses.

If Video Account can form a three-way split with Douyin and Kuaishou, then its value to the entire Internet universe lies in:

1. Proves that there are still opportunities in the content industry

In a sense, video accounts can only live and cannot die.

If the video account is abandoned, it means that Tencent will not be able to shake the position of Douyin, and no one will pose a threat to Douyin from now on.

Once the video account is successful, it will at least prove that Douyin is not invincible.

2. Maintaining the value of the WeChat ecosystem

If the video account fails, the usage time of WeChat users will undoubtedly be further diverted by Douyin.

The commercial value of the WeChat ecosystem will undoubtedly decline slowly and continuously. Once there is only one super platform, Douyin, the phenomenon of traffic oligopoly will become more serious, and the business environment will become completely stagnant.

3. Maintain competition between platforms

At the beginning of competition in food delivery, taxi-hailing, and group buying industries, users and merchants were actually able to make profits. However, as the pattern gradually took shape, the platforms began to become the ultimate beneficiaries.

The content industry is naturally no exception. On TikTok today, there are so many content producers that the probability of good content standing out is declining sharply.

If there are a steady stream of new platforms emerging, and each platform is scrambling for high-quality content in order to retain users, then high-quality content producers will be respected.

Author: Cai Zhao, WeChat public account: I am Cai Zhao (ID: woshicaizhao)