Speaking of Alibaba, many people will be familiar with it. This well-known platform is as indestructible as the online kingdom created by Jack Ma. After boarding the crossover car of the Internet era, the scale of Alibaba's platform has gradually increased. However, as everyone knows, many well-known brands have gradually been "destroyed" by Alibaba. Among them, some have officially announced that they will cease service.
Friends who are familiar with business operations will have a better understanding of the concepts of acquisitions and mergers. When it comes to Alibaba brands, many entrepreneurs will also think that being acquired by Alibaba is a very lucky thing. This is like the last life-saving straw, which may be able to "resurrect" a small and micro enterprise.
The embarrassing thing is that being acquired by Alibaba is not a completely good thing. If you know the truth, you may be surprised, because after Alibaba entered the market, some brands went downhill one after another and ushered in their own "doomsday" early. For example, friends who like to listen to music may often switch back and forth between multiple music platforms such as Kugou, NetEase Cloud and QQ Music, but in addition, Xiami Music also has a glorious history.
Unfortunately, in 2021, it officially ended its life and announced its closure. In other words, it will be difficult for Xiami Music to appear again in the music arena in the future. As soon as this news came out, many new and old users felt extremely sad. Some attentive friends also discovered after much exploration that Xiami Music was actually one of the brands acquired by Alipin. But just when everyone thought that Xiami would usher in a new life, it directly announced that it would stop serving. Many people are puzzled: Why did the brand that Ali spent a lot of money to acquire end up in such a situation?
Before answering this question, we might as well take the time to sort out the entire development process of Xiami Music. Since its establishment in 2008, Xiami Music has been one of the music apps favored by industry insiders. At that time, although it was surrounded by strong competitors such as Kugou, NetEase Cloud and Q Music, it had a unique recommendation set mechanism. Therefore, it can carve out its own path in the fierce music market.
In 2013, when Alibaba was about to expand its business, after weighing the pros and cons, it made a large purchase of Xiami and Tiantian Dongting, which were in low value, and wanted to build them into a new Alibaba-based music .
In the inertial thinking of many people, with such a "big tree" on its back, perhaps Xiami can also burst out with the vitality of the new era. But the embarrassing thing is that although the palms and backs of his hands are full of flesh, Ali seems to have already focused all his energy on his music project. From the moment it was purchased, Xiami, who had no way out, was relegated to the sidelines and was considered marginalized. With no one paying attention, they can only grow freely, waiting for the result of life or death.
At this time, Xiami’s new owner Alibaba is not idle either. He is busy building a music software called Ali Planet. Maybe it was a step too big. Alibaba people who are deeply involved in e-commerce platforms seem not to understand music. No matter how hard they try, they don't seem to be able to make this brand a leader in the industry, but even so, Ali has never taken care of the idle Xiami.
What is even more surprising is that when Xiami Music was in danger of survival, Alibaba turned around and invested US$700 million in NetEase Cloud Music, completely blocking the road to resurrection of Xiami Music.
In addition to Xiami’s tragic experience, Tiantian Dongting and China Wanwang, both of which were acquired by Alibaba, also experienced unsatisfactory bad endings. Not only that, as a once-popular brand, Wandoujia has accumulated 500 million users. At its peak, it was also acquired by Alibaba in a big way, but within a few years, it was shut down, which shocked a lot of onlookers.
If you think that Alibaba has only failed in these few brands, maybe you have only a partial understanding. Because Alibaba has “ruined” many brands, such as Youku and Ele.me.
As one of the largest video websites in my country, Youku’s market value reached US$4.36 billion on its second day of listing.
Compared with it, Mango TV at the same time was simply vulnerable, because its active users only reached more than 50 million, not even one-tenth of Youku. However, Youku, which has great prospects for development, has started high and gone low. After being acquired by Alibaba, its one-year loss reached an astonishing 2 billion.
Similarly, Ele.me’s fate also had twists and turns. Today, Ele.me may no longer be able to compete with Meituan. And if you want to ask how long Youku and Ele.me can survive under Ali's watchful eye, this is a question that is impossible to know.
Summary:
Some people think that the reason why Alibaba acquired these brands is simply to destroy the brand, so as to launch its own original brand. After occupying their user groups, Alibaba can gradually attract users to Taobao. This trick of "building plank roads openly and building warehouses secretly" is enough to make them rich. As for the acquired brands, whether they need to fend for themselves or redeem themselves, this is not what Alibaba should be most concerned about. Faced with this answer, many people nodded in praise, and many people dismissed it, but in the face of the unknown truth, we may only remain temporarily silent.
Today’s topic: Some of the well-known brands that have been ruined by Alibaba have “officially announced” that they will stop serving them. How many do you know?