APTnovel Chapter 491 Tencent's reach is wide, Lu Ran's reach is deep.
Chapter 491 Tencent's reach is wide, Lu Ran's reach is deep.
Tencent's Chairman Ma put down his pen and glanced around the conference room: "By next Wednesday, I need initial feedback from our contacts with bike-sharing companies, including Hello Bike's willingness to cooperate and the potential scale of investment. At the same time, we also need a preliminary framework for our new energy vehicle proposal; it doesn't need to be too detailed, but we need to at least know the extent to which they are willing to open up."
The people in the meeting room nodded in agreement and quickly took notes in their notebooks.
The deputy director of the strategic investment department had already taken out his phone and started sending messages to the contact person at Hello. The head of intelligent mobility turned his head and whispered a few words to the head of cloud computing. Their voices were very low, but both of them looked serious.
Someone then asked, "Mr. Ma, should we continue to put pressure on TUTU?"
Without hesitation, the chairman said, "Continue. TUTU is a long-term problem; our counterattack won't end overnight. They've set up defenses, but our offensive shouldn't stop. However, we need to adjust our approach. We can't just focus on blocking their entry points anymore—that strategy has proven ineffective. Our strategy against TUTU will be three-tiered: First, maintain competitive pressure in the main market, hindering their user and revenue growth. Second, on the channel side, compress their space by strengthening our ties with Tencent's allies. Third, the new direction I mentioned earlier—indirectly changing the overall ecosystem through business lines aligned with official policies. We'll advance on all three fronts simultaneously, avoiding betting on a single direction."
After he finished speaking, he glanced around at the few people remaining in the meeting room: "If there's nothing else, the meeting is adjourned. Send me a progress report every two weeks."
The sound of chairs being dragged echoed one after another in the quiet conference room.
People stood up and walked out in twos and threes. Some made phone calls as they walked, some took pictures of the meeting minutes and sent them to the work group, and some stood in the corridor waiting to confirm a few more details with their colleagues.
The deputy director of the strategic investment department was the last to leave the conference room. He paused at the door and glanced back at the conference room, which was now mostly empty.
The overhead light at the end of the long table was still on, and several documents that hadn't been put away were spread out on the table in the light. The pages were gently lifted by the air conditioner and then fell back down.
Tencent's building is still in operation, with hundreds of people on each floor typing, holding meetings, making phone calls, and writing code at their respective workstations.
But the directions set in that top-floor conference room today are becoming action instructions for thousands of people in dozens of departments over the next few months.
On the eighteenth floor of that gray office building in Shanghai, Lu Ran was standing by the window watching the pedestrians on the street below, whose clothes were getting thinner and thinner.
The spring breeze has blown away the last trace of winter's chill, and the new leaves of the sycamore trees gleam with a tender green light under the streetlights.
He took a sip of the teacup; the tea was warm, not scalding.
He placed his phone on the table; the screen lit up and then dimmed, then remained off.
...
The meeting at Tencent headquarters had just ended, and the people in the meeting room hadn't even all left yet, when the deputy director of the strategic investment department had already made the first phone call in the corridor.
The call was made to a vice president of Hello Bike. The two had exchanged business cards at an industry forum before and had maintained lukewarm contact ever since.
The deputy director didn't spend too much time exchanging pleasantries. He started by saying, "Chairman Ma mentioned your names at the meeting today," and then briefly talked about the direction of cooperation.
The other party was clearly taken aback by the opening remarks, and their tone changed from polite to serious, saying that they would arrange an internal discussion as soon as possible.
That afternoon, the head of the business development department also took action.
He had his team re-examine the dozen or so small and medium-sized companies they had previously screened, categorizing them according to three dimensions: "whether they have been invested in by Tencent," "whether they have independent financing needs," and "whether they are competitors." He then selected the three highest-priority companies and had the investment managers contact their founders directly.
The three companies reacted differently.
The most proactive company was a social tool company. It was not large in scale but had a very strong user stickiness. After receiving the call, the founder immediately arranged to meet in Shenzhen the next day.
The other two companies were slightly more cautious, but they didn't refuse either, saying they could send a cooperation framework first.
The acquisition had barely begun when the heads of the smart mobility and cloud computing departments were already in the conference room revising the plans in front of a large screen.
The shared bike direction was handed over to a young director who had recently been promoted. He was efficient and formed a three-person team on the same day he took on the task at the meeting. The division of labor was clear: one person was responsible for data research, one person was responsible for writing the cooperation framework, and one person was responsible for liaising with the other party's business department.
By 9 p.m., the first draft of the cooperation framework had been sent to Hello's email address.
The situation is slightly more complicated with new energy vehicles.
NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto each have their own advantages. After a round of internal discussions, NIO was chosen first because it has the most experience in vehicle connectivity and user operations, and its capabilities are most compatible with Tencent Cloud.
The head of cloud computing contacted an executive at NIO responsible for connected vehicle business overnight. The executive expressed great interest but said he needed to see the specific plan before proceeding.
In less than a day, Tencent had established a complete division of labor and a clear pace of progress.
Each direction has a clearly defined person in charge and a timeline. Each person in charge has the right to directly mobilize the resources of their department without needing to go through layers of approval.
Over the next few days, the highly efficient machine began to operate at full speed.
The acquisition is progressing the fastest.
The founder of the social networking company came to Shenzhen for a face-to-face meeting and the intention was finalized on the spot. The price negotiation went more smoothly than expected. The main reason was that the other company had been losing money for half a year and its cash on hand could not last long. Although Tencent's offer was not the highest, it was faster and the process was shorter, with not too many additional conditions.
The two parties signed a letter of intent for investment on the third day after their meeting, with only due diligence and final approval remaining.
The second company in the circle is a small content community platform with a small user base but an extremely high retention rate. Its core user group is mainly young women, and it has almost no direct competitors in its niche market.
Tencent's assessment concluded that the value of this acquisition lay in supplementing data and user profiles, not in acquiring traffic.
The founder of the other company was more hesitant about the acquisition than the first one, but his attitude softened considerably after Tencent promised that the team would operate independently and would not interfere with the product direction.
The negotiations took six days from the first contact to the signing of the contract, three days longer than expected, but it was still considered very fast.
The third one is slightly larger; it's a local life services mini-program aggregation platform with users covering several second-tier cities and daily active users in the millions.
Tencent hadn't had much involvement in this sector before, and acquiring this company would allow them to quickly fill that gap.
The negotiations were more difficult than with the previous two companies, mainly because the other party had its own valuation expectations, which differed from Tencent's offer.
With the involvement of a real estate agency, the two sides held another round of talks and eventually compromised, reaching a preliminary agreement.
The progress of our contact with the bike-sharing company is also faster than expected.
Hello responded positively to Tencent's proposal, firstly because the bike-sharing industry is highly competitive and financially strained, and having a stable major investor is a good thing.
Secondly, Tencent's resources in user access and payment scenarios can indeed bring them significant incremental growth.
After three rounds of communication, Hello has agreed to start special negotiations and expects to reach a framework agreement within two weeks.
The development of new energy vehicles is relatively slower, after all, it involves deeper technological fields and more complex cooperation models.
However, NIO has set aside a special team to work with Tencent. The two sides have conducted multiple rounds of technical communication on the two aspects of vehicle networking data sharing and joint development of smart cockpits, and the progress is going more smoothly than expected.
The head of cloud computing once said at an internal weekly meeting, "The people at NIO are easier to deal with than I thought." Someone next to him replied, "That's because they also know that cooperating with Tencent is beneficial to them."
WeChat Pay hasn't been idle either.
The scope of WeChat Wallet's internal testing was expanded twice that week, covering users from several million to nearly ten million, with both online and offline payment scenarios increasing simultaneously.
The team emphasized the core logic in internal meetings: keeping users' money within the ecosystem is the best moat.
In terms of strengthening alliances, Tencent's actions are more covert but effective.
Meituan, Pinduoduo, and Didi, these core partners, received a new round of resource support plans offered by Tencent in that week.
The plan mainly focuses on traffic allocation and commercial collaboration, with the condition that future cooperation will be more inclined to be deeply integrated with Tencent Cloud and WeChat Pay.
Meituan responded the fastest; the vice president in charge of the collaboration gave a positive reply the day after receiving the proposal.
Pinduoduo delayed for a few days, but did not refuse, only proposing a few minor adjustments.
Didi is the most cautious, probably because it already has a certain foundation with Tencent and doesn't want to appear too hasty in this adjustment.
However, the head of business development wasn't worried. He later told his team something very practical: "It's okay if they don't agree, as long as they don't align themselves with TUTU."
When Tencent unleashed this series of combined attacks, dozens of meetings were held simultaneously from Shenzhen to Shanghai to Hangzhou to Beijing, and hundreds of messages were jumping back and forth in different work groups.
It's as efficient as an engine that's just had its maintenance done; every cylinder is working properly, and I didn't hear a single unusual noise.
Lu Ran received these messages a week later.
The sources of information were varied. Some were obtained by Chen Mo through his old connections within Tencent, some were casually mentioned by the liaisons between JD.com and Ele.me, and a few were found by Zhao Yiming from posts on technical forums—someone said in an anonymous post, "Tencent has been on a buying spree recently, and they have negotiated with several small and medium-sized companies."
Lu Ran strung together the messages, sat in his office chair, looked out at the May sky for a while, then picked up his phone and sent a message to Zhou Mingzhe and Chen Mo: "Come to my office for a moment."
The two arrived very quickly.
Lu Ran briefly explained Tencent's actions.
Acquisitions, equity investments, alliance building, and new business launches are all happening simultaneously, with the pace as fast as if an accelerator button has been pressed.
After listening, Zhou Mingzhe remained silent for a moment: "Their strategy is incredibly capital-intensive. Acquiring three companies, investing in HelloBike, negotiating a partnership with NIO, and adding resources to Meituan, Pinduoduo, and Didi—every single line is burning money. Even with Tencent's large size, doing so many things simultaneously won't last long."
Chen Mo's view differs: "They do burn through cash quickly. But what Tencent is doing now isn't driven by short-term profits; they're building long-term barriers. Acquiring those small and medium-sized companies isn't about making money immediately, but about blocking potential future targets we might try to win over. Investing in Hello and NIO is about securing a favorable policy position. These moves might take a year or even longer to see results. They're not doing short-term suppression, they're doing long-term encirclement."
Lu Ran leaned back in his chair and listened to the two men finish speaking before speaking himself: "Brother Zhou is right. Deploying so many lines simultaneously is indeed a huge financial drain; they can't maintain this intensity indefinitely. Chen Mo is also right; these deployments aren't aimed at short-term gains. So we need to adjust our assessment."
He paused, placing his phone on the table: "We can't emulate what Tencent is doing now. We don't have the financial resources to simultaneously make acquisitions and investments, nor the accumulated capital to launch several new ventures at once. What we can do is take advantage of their distractions to deepen the lines we've already established."
"The AI technology from JD.com, Ele.me, and Kuaishou/Douyin has been integrated and running for some time now. I need to see specific data."
Zhou Mingzhe nodded: "The technical team is already compiling the data. Zhao Yiming said that the first batch of results for Ele.me should be available in the next few days. Kuaishou and Douyin will be a little later, but they're also making progress."
"Let's wait for the data," Lu Ran said. "If the data proves that our AI technology can indeed bring quantifiable benefits to our partners, then this is the strongest card we have."
After Zhou Mingzhe and Chen Mo left, Lu Ran sat alone in the office for a while.
Tencent's strategy did surprise him somewhat.
He thought the other party would continue to exert pressure on the entry point and channels, but after they finished their routine operations, they directly extended the battle line to a longer dimension—acquisitions, new industry layouts, and alliances, each of which would take more than a year to see results.
This is not a short-term counterattack, but a long-term containment.
But he wasn't too anxious.
Tencent is a large and powerful company with many business lines to operate in, but it also has limited resources allocated to each line.
His scope is small, so he can only focus on doing one or two things, but focus itself has its power.
He turned on his computer and flipped to a preliminary test log sent from Kuaishou.
The log records the data changes after the AI recommendation optimization module was integrated. Although the sample size is not large enough, the curve already shows a clear direction.
The line was slowly moving upwards.
He turned off the journal, leaned back in his chair, and started thinking about other things.
No matter how much Tencent plans, it will take time to see the results.
This month was precisely the period during which he accumulated data.
Once the data is solid enough, the commercial value of his AI technology can be quantified, and he can use it to negotiate collaborations with more companies.
The business world is like a game of chess. Tencent's move went far, but it also went deep.
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