Right and wrong of internet bubble
E-commerce has become the focus of worldwide attention and speculation. "Paranoid boss" Andy Grove, chairman of Intel Corporation, issued a famous warning in the Internet age: "Jump on the high-speed train of e-commerce quickly, or you will have no good end!"
E-commerce covers a wide range of business, mainly including information exchange, pre-sales and after-sales services (providing detailed descriptions of products and services, technical guidelines for product use, and answering customers' opinions and requirements), sales, electronic payment (using electronic fund transfer, electronic credit cards, electronic checks and electronic cash), logistics (including packaging, delivery management and transportation tracking of goods) and establishing virtual stores or virtual enterprises (establishing a non-existent enterprise, establishing a virtual enterprise).
China's e-commerce market is growing rapidly, and it is predicted that it will increase from $65.438 billion to $40 million in 2000 and reach several billion dollars in 2003. The total amount of goods traded online is as high as 1.5 million, and e-commerce is rapidly weaving people's "gold rush dream".
Although the concepts of Internet and e-commerce are hot at present, stocks with a little taste of "Internet Fairy" will be bullish, but some people have calmly put forward many challenging views, including some alarmist conclusions.
As early as the summer of 1998, the British "Economist" magazine put forward that "the asset price inflation in the United States is a greater threat to the world economy, not the financial crisis in Southeast Asia. The US stock market has risen by 65,438+05% this year, up by 65% compared with the previous two years, and this is not the only sign of a bubble. " Since then, scholars have been questioning how long the economic prosperity of the United States can last, or predicting that the big bubble is about to burst. However, the outstanding performance of information technology companies and internet companies in the capital market has dragged modern economics based on mathematical analysis into an embarrassing situation, which surprised economists. At the same time, various economic indicators also show that in the past 1999, the American economy still maintained a growth momentum of 4%, the inflation rate remained at a low level of 2.2%, and the unemployment rate also fell to the lowest point in the past 30 years. According to the research report published by the University of Texas in June 1999, the Internet economy in June 1999 increased the output value by 507 billion dollars and 2.3 million jobs. But economists still insist that the price of stocks should be based on income. Without profit, it is difficult to price stocks, and the law of price-income ratio should not be wrong anyway! But how much dividend does Amazon's stock have? In fact, until now, it is still losing money. It is not only economists who think that there are a lot of bubbles in the American capital market, but also some well-known securities companies have joined the ranks of fighting bubbles. 1At the end of February, 1999, Biggs, chief global investment consultant of Morgan Stanley, made an amazing statement: In the next five years, new york stock market will consolidate, and the decline will be reduced from 10% to 12%, making it the largest financial trading market in the world. He believes that in the American capital market, the stocks of technology, network and electronic communication are 45% to 50% higher than their reasonable prices. Traditional consumer goods and industrial production companies are facing great competitive pressure because of deflation, and the stock prices of some traditional industries have even fallen to the price of economic recession. He predicted that the bubble of technology stocks would burst one day, investors' confidence in technology stocks was too high, and the profit performance of the technology industry could not actually reach such high expectations.
Looking back at China's Internet market, e-commerce is still hot in China, but it has not really penetrated into its core. 1998 wITh the rise of foreign e-commerce, the domestic it industry quickly followed suit and vigorously developed e-commerce, and many enterprises also quickly entered, thinking that they could make money immediately by engaging in e-commerce. It can be said that the field of e-commerce in China is full of impetuous emotions, and many people who join e-commerce also show impetuous mentality.
Amazon's success, Yahoo! The listing of China. com makes domestic counterparts both excited and jealous. Isn't it just building a website? Gather a few people and raise some money, and a website will be set up. Try to attract several companies to sell goods online and label them as e-commerce, and they will become e-commerce companies publicly. For a time, domestic websites have mushroomed rapidly, but look closely, there is no obvious difference between many websites, which is nothing more than building a platform and nothing more. There are also some enterprises that, in order to improve their popularity and create a sensational effect in the future listing, do not work hard on their business, but use various media to hype wildly, so that they lose themselves and confuse consumers, and e-commerce has also changed its flavor in China.
According to the analysis of economists, there are indeed Internet economic bubbles in the capital market, but what is more important is when these bubbles burst. So how do Internet companies view bubbles and losses?
Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon Bookstore) has no time to think about the so-called "bubble problem". He doesn't think it is necessary to explain to the market why he lost money, because he has more valuable things to do. The first important thing is how to make Amazon's network continue to expand outward. "My first thought when I wake up every morning is that the Internet is growing at an annual rate of 2,300%." There are 6 billion people and 6 billion pairs of eyes in the world. For Amazon, how to attract the attention of these eyeballs to the maximum extent has become the first important thing, because Bezos' creed is that "brand awareness is more critical in the Internet world than in the physical world." However, competing for the attention of a pair of eyes will generate unit costs accordingly. The Internet is growing at a rate of 23 times a year, and Bezos' Amazon will also expand at a rate of 23 times a year, so its cost will also increase at a corresponding rate. On the day when Anason makes a profit, the eyeball resources will be divided up, and then the cost will plummet. On this day, Amazon will give investors a high return like gold.
"At present, the network is in an investment period, just like a highway. Only after the completion of the expressway can the toll be charged. Therefore, it is normal that there is no profit during the investment period, but it does not mean that the loss is its characteristic, and the excess profit is its characteristic. The key is to establish a business model that can bring excess profits "(Wang Zhidong, President of Sina).
"The Internet economy is by no means a bubble economy. There are obvious differences between Internet economy and traditional economy. The real estate fever and automobile fever in the traditional economy are fluctuating, while the Internet is a trend, and it is only the tip of the iceberg at present. After three years, the total value of Internet will be equivalent to the total value of GNP in China. In this case, there are not many 100 Internet companies, and the Internet era has just begun in China, far from being a bubble economy. The development of Internet economy is like a storm. When the storm comes, there will definitely be some dust raised, and there will definitely be some companies that follow the wind to package some miscellaneous things with the concept of com. But after the storm, the dust will be washed away, and the company chasing the wind will never become the mainstream "(Zeng, president of Sinopec).
Obviously, this issue, which is crucial to the lifeblood of various Internet companies, has not left any trace in the minds of these companies, because for them, it doesn't matter whether there is a bubble, if there is, when it will burst. Speed is the first priority for them. In the internet world, the change has gone far beyond Grove's concept of 10 times speed. Considering the so-called "bubble problem" for one second is enough to miss the once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity. Facts have proved that thinking about how to create a new Internet business model is much more valuable than thinking about whether there is a bubble in the capital market.