Lex專欄: 騰訊征服世界的成本過高嗎?
WhatsApp famously reached 450m users around the world without spending so much as a dime on marketing. Facebook bought the instant-message service for (ahem) 190bn dimes not long afterward.
衆所周知，WhatsApp沒在市場營銷上花一分錢，就將其全球用戶規模做到了4.5億人。此後不久，Facebook就斥資（咳咳）190億美元收購了這家即時通訊服務公司。Old-fashioned valuation is scarily irrelevant in the world of chat apps. The game is conquering a world of millions of smartphone users. Such petty details as actually earning money off these users are left for the distant future by anyone buying Facebook’s stock at 50 times forward earnings.
在聊天應用領域，傳統估值方法幾乎毫無用處。這一領域的競爭目標，在於贏得數以百萬計的智能手機用戶。至於如何從這些用戶身上實實在在掙到錢這種細枝末節的問題，是留給很久以後以50倍預期市盈率的價格購買Facebook股票的投資者的。Still, the bet assumes barriers to entry will exist to protect future earnings in the app market. That seems weird for a business built on flighty electrons. But hope lies with the sheer network effect of lots of users. Zero marketing costs at WhatsApp feeds this hope.
不過，投資者眼下仍然押注於一種假定，即市場進入門檻將持續存在，能保護應用市場的未來盈利空間。對於一項建立在更新換代頻繁的電子產品基礎上的業務而言，這個假定似乎有些奇怪。但投資者但從大量用戶帶來的網絡效應就看到了希望。而WhatsApp市場營銷支出爲零的做法，進一步強化了這種希望。
The rise in marketing spend at Tencent should deflate it back a bit. China’s biggest internet company (market capitalisation: $140bn) has plenty of users on its WeChat network, too: 355m, at the end of 2013. WeChat and WhatsApp may each eventually rise to 1bn users, Macquarie reckons. While WeChat has Asia-Pacific presence already, WhatsApp needs to dial into the region’s nearly 750m smartphones.
但騰訊(Tencent)在市場營銷方面的支出增長，應該會讓這種希望略微降溫。中國第一大互聯網企業（市值1400億美元）騰訊旗下的微信(WeChat)同樣網羅了龐大的用戶羣：截至2013年底，微信的用戶人數已達到3.55億人。麥格理(Macquarie)認爲，微信和WhatsApp各自的用戶數量或許最終都將達到10億人。微信在亞太地區已頗具市場影響力，而WhatsApp則仍需向這一地區近7.5億的智能手機用戶推廣自己。But when it comes to WeChat’s expansion elsewhere, the coin has turned – Tencent spent Rmb5.7bn ($920m) on sales and marketing last year compared to Rmb3bn a year earlier. It partly goes on WeChat TV ads featuring Bollywood actors in India, Lionel Messi in Europe and (er) WeChat Guy elsewhere. This is not growth by network effect alone.
但微信在向亞太以外的其他地區擴張時，情況就反過來了——騰訊去年在銷售和市場營銷方面花費了57億元人民幣（合9.2億美元），高於上一年的30億元人民幣。部分支出用於在電視上爲微信打廣告，包括在印度邀請寶萊塢演員主演的廣告，在歐洲地區邀請利昂內爾•梅西(Lionel Messi)出演的廣告，以及在其他地區推出的WeChat Guy廣告。這已不再是單純依靠網絡效應推動的增長。This may not matter if Tencent can monetise growth. Its gross margin remains 55 per cent. Last year’s Rmb15.5bn in net profit shows the opportunity to be had integrating WeChat with Tencent’s workhorse, online gaming.
如果騰訊能將增長套現，這或許不會成爲一個問題。騰訊的毛利率仍然維持在55%。去年該公司的淨利潤達到了155億元人民幣，表明將微信與騰訊的在線遊戲業務相結合會帶來巨大機遇。在線遊戲業務是騰訊的盈利主力。But the shares remain priced 40 times forward earnings. They were 12 times at the start of 2012, having risen with the help of a flood of Federal Reserve liquidity since then. Tencent has trailblazed in the era of chat-app land-grabs. What if world conquest gets dearer?
但目前騰訊的股票仍然保持着40倍的預期市盈率，這個數字在2012年初僅爲12倍，在美聯儲(Federal Reserve)釋放的大量流動性推動下一路走高至今。騰訊是聊天應用攻城略地時代的先驅者。但如果征服世界的成本變得更加昂貴了呢？
