Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1267
TikTok e-commerce GMV exceeds US$1 billion in the first half of the year
5-year target of $470 billion
“LatePost” exclusively learned that the GMV (gross merchandise transaction) of TikTok e-commerce in the first half of 2022 has exceeded 1 billion US dollars, which is equivalent to its volume in the whole of 2021. Among them, the average monthly GMV of the Indonesian market reached 200 million US dollars; the average monthly GMV of the British market reached 24 million US dollars.
However, compared with its competitors, the scale of TikTok e-commerce is still limited. According to the financial report, the GMV of Shopee, a subsidiary of Donghai Group, has exceeded 60 billion US dollars in 2021; Alibaba disclosed at the 2021 Investor Day that as of September 2021, its e-commerce platform Lazada GMV reached 21 billion US dollars.
TikTok e-commerce achieved rapid growth in the first half of the year, in addition to its small size, it also benefited from its expansion in Southeast Asia.
A person close to TikTok e-commerce said that starting from the end of 2021, after TikTok’s Indonesian e-commerce has increased its investment in investment, the monthly occupancy rate of merchants has achieved rapid growth; in April this year, it is Ramadan, which is the first time for Indonesians. In the middle of the year, the most frequent online shopping period, TikTok e-commerce started a round of promotion activities to attract users. According to official data, during the Eid al-Fitr promotion, TikTok’s Indonesian e-commerce orders increased by 493%, and GMV increased by 92%.
In the first half of the year, TikTok e-commerce also launched local and cross-border businesses in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. In these countries, TikTok waives a one-month platform commission for new sellers, as well as a 1% payment channel fee. “LatePost” exclusively learned that the above five countries have been able to contribute at least 50% of the GMV to TikTok’s e-commerce in Southeast Asia.
According to “LatePost”, the TikTok e-commerce team has also set a goal of achieving $470 billion (nearly 3 trillion yuan) in GMV within 5 years this year. At the current pace, it is not easy to achieve this goal. Amazon, which is nearly 30 years old, will only break $600 billion in net sales in 2021.
The current unit price of TikTok e-commerce is generally low. Taking the Indonesian market as an example, the unit price of TikTok e-commerce here is only US$2-3, and the user base is mostly young people aged 18-24. However, TikTok e-commerce denies the above situation. Compared with markets with higher e-commerce maturity, Southeast Asia lags behind domestically in terms of the content quality of live broadcasts and short videos, as well as the level of experts, making it very difficult to cultivate the market.
In terms of investment promotion, TikTok e-commerce has not yet solved the problem of difficulty in introducing international brands. A person involved in TikTok’s e-commerce investment promotion said that although the number of merchants in various countries continues to increase, they are still dominated by white cards. International brands have always worried that the operating costs of live-streaming e-commerce are too high, and that selling goods on the TikTok platform will affect the brand’s own image.
The above-mentioned people said that what TikTok e-commerce companies want most now is brand merchants. White-brand merchants will not only affect the user experience of TikTok and cause legal risks, but they also pay special attention to the input-output ratio, and spend less money on TikTok; and attracting brand merchants to settle in can not only attract more customers Users can also increase TikTok’s in-loop advertising revenue.
Previously, some media reported that TikTok e-commerce would give up market expansion, which was subsequently denied by TikTok. “LatePost” learned that in order to achieve the goal of GMV exceeding 470 billion US dollars in five years, TikTok e-commerce plans to complete the expansion of more than ten key countries by the end of 2023. (Text | Edited by Gao Honghao and Li Xiaolei | Gao Honghao)
ARM CPU company Qilingxin ceases operations
Previously licensed with ARM IP
“LatePost” previously reported that since the second half of last year, a number of ARM CPU companies have emerged in the Chinese market. Soon after their establishment, they have received hundreds of millions of financing and have a luxurious founding team background. Qilingxin is one of them.
After more than half a year of official operation, Qilingxin changed suddenly last week. “LatePost” learned that Qi Lingxin notified all staff last Friday that the company will stop operating from now on.
Qilingxin was established at the end of 2021, and has completed two rounds of financing of about 600 million yuan so far. Angel round investors include founders of many semiconductor companies such as Silicon Lijie, Shixin Technology, Weir Technology, Hengxuan Technology, etc. The A round The investor is Lightspeed China.
According to “LatePost”, when Qi Lingxin launched the first round of financing, Wu Xiongang, the former chairman of Arm China, docked some investors for it.
Wu Xiongang was dispatched to China by Arm headquarters in 2006 to be responsible for sales, and later served as the head of Arm China. Since 2018, he has served as the chairman of Arm China, a joint venture between Arm and Chinese capital.
In June 2020, Arm, a shareholder of Arm China, tried to remove Wu Xiongang but was unsuccessful . In April this year, Amou China completed the industrial and commercial change, Wu Xiongang no longer served as chairman, and the dispute over the control of Amou China was settled.
One of the specific contradictions in the control turmoil is Alphatecture, an investment fund founded by Wu Xiongang in 2019. People close to Arm said the fund had invested in some Arm customers and had conflicts of interest with Arm China, and the establishment of the fund was not approved by Arm China’s board of directors. Wu Xiongang said that the board of directors of Anmou China knew about the matter and agreed.
Alphatecture invested 127 million yuan in Arm’s client Hengxuan Technology in 2019, accounting for 3.2% of the shares. Hengxuan Technology will be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2020, with a current market value of about 19 billion yuan. The founder of Hengxuan Technology is also one of the investors of Qilingxin.
The core personnel of Qilingxin are Lin Wei and Wang Qian. Both of them worked in Ali Pingtou Ge Meiyan as P10. Lin Wei has 25 years of industry experience and has participated in the development of Intel server CPU Itanium and Huawei Hisilicon mobile phone CPU Kirin.
Many people close to the matter said that Qi Lingxin stopped operating because the partners could not reach a consensus on control rights, resulting in poor financing.
In the letter to all members of Qi Lingxin obtained by “LatePost”, it was mentioned that the operation was stopped because “partners did not cooperate with financing”. The letter is signed as Qi Lingxin Company.
The letter also stated that Qi Lingxin will pay the salary in August in full, and from September 5, the salary will only be paid according to the minimum salary standard in Shanghai, that is, 2,590 yuan per month.
Qi Lingxin currently has nearly 50 employees, most of whom have a monthly salary of around 50,000-80,000 yuan. Some people close to Qi Lingxin believe that the current salary arrangement is to let employees leave voluntarily to avoid layoff compensation.
About a month ago, Qi Lingxin completed the latest round of industrial and commercial changes, and Lin Wei is no longer the legal representative of the company. According to “LatePost”, Lin Wei did not leave the spiritual core. On Friday, Lin Wei also appeared in the Shanghai office of Qilingxin and apologized to some employees in person, saying “I’m sorry everyone”, but did not disclose the company’s next plans.
“LatePost” learned that Qi Lingxin had purchased the ARM IP license before it stopped operating. It was previously reported that Qilingxin ceased operations because it was difficult to obtain ARM IP, which was not true.
Before June this year, Qi Lingxin was still vigorously recruiting talents, issued nearly 40 new offers, and hoped that candidates would join as soon as possible. But since July, the candidate onboarding process has been suspended.
The salary package previously given by Qi Lingxin exceeds that of its peers. When recruiting IC verification engineers with 3-5 years of work experience, most ARM CPU startups will give a monthly salary of 30,000-60,000 yuan, while Qilingxin can give 60,000-90,000 yuan. A CPU/SoC performance modeling engineer who has worked for 30,000-5 years can get an annual salary of about 1.1 million yuan in Qilingxin.
A person close to Qilingxin commented, “Although Qilingxin has not announced its dissolution, it is no different from dissolution.” Its move to pay minimum wages will have the effect of severing employees. However, the IP purchased by Qi Lingxin is still a valuable asset, and it is not ruled out that the company will operate again after the reorganization. (Text, edited by Ma Hui, Cheng Manqi)
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