Wen | Laoyuer
Editor | Yang Xuran
Source | Spring Wave
According to the latest data released by Forbes, due to the continuous decline of Tesla's share price, Musk's value was surpassed by Bernard Arnault, the chairman of the French luxury giant LVMH Group, and thus he lost the title of the world's richest man.
This also means that there is a new richest man in the world.
For a long time in the past, the "throne" of the world's richest man has been held by Bill Gates, Buffett, Bezos, etc., with little change. Until September 2021, Tesla founder Mask surpassed Amazon founder Bezos and became the first richest new face in more than 20 years.
In 2022, Bernard Arnault topped the list of the richest people in the world.
This is similar to the pattern of China's richest man. In the past two years, when everyone got used to the fact that the real estate and Internet tycoons took turns to be the richest man, the water seller Zhong 睒睒睒睒 suddenly shot out, rewriting the "pattern of the richest man".
Bill Gates, Buffett and Bezos, who used to be software, finance and the Internet, formed the "old richest man" system. Now, Mask and Bernard Arnault, who are entities and products, have become the "new pattern of the richest man".
There is no law at first glance, but a careful examination can reveal the mystery: on the one hand, compared with the financial Internet, the real economy has once again played a role as a value shaping machine; On the other hand, different from the old richest man, the new richest man's wealth proportion from China has increased quietly.
Historical changes of "medium content"
Microsoft, Amazon, LV, Tesla
On October 11, Bernard Arnault's LVMH Group released the key financial data for the first three quarters of fiscal year 2022 as of September 30: the sales increased by 28% year on year to 56.485 billion euros.
In terms of region, Asia (excluding Japan) accounted for 32% of the sales, which is still the largest business segment of the Group.
In fact, as early as 10 years ago, Asia (excluding Japan) was the largest business area of LVMH Group.
Although "Asia (excluding Japan)" does not mention the word "China", it is believed that all luxury goods merchants in the world know that this region is: China.
China is a competitive place for luxury goods merchants in the world
On November 7, 2022, the Luxury Professional Committee of the China Federation of Commerce and the VIP Research Institute jointly released the Report on China's High Quality Consumption at the Expo, which showed that the total consumption of the Chinese luxury market reached $146.5 billion, or nearly trillion yuan; The Chinese luxury market accounts for 46% of the global luxury market, nearly half; The proportion of China's domestic market in the global luxury market has risen to 30%, and China's domestic market has become the world's largest luxury market for the first time.
This can be seen from the number of stores of LVMH Group in China.
By the end of June 2021, there are 2123 stores of LVMH brands in China, accounting for 39% of the total number of LVMH group stores; It is far higher than 1727 in European market and 998 in American market.
Therefore, even in the years plagued by the epidemic, the Chinese people's enthusiasm for luxury consumption has not been suppressed.
Bernard Arnault once said: "In 2021, we found that although Chinese customers could not travel abroad, they bought more goods from LVMH than in 2019."
In view of the huge supporting role of the Chinese market for their own wealth, Arnault did not dare to relax its service to the Chinese market. He said that "international travel will not recover in the short term". The top priority is "how to maintain close contact with Chinese customers? How can we ensure to provide them with the best and most innovative products?"
Compared with Arnault, a few days ago, the wealth of the world's richest man, Musk, was clear and intuitive.
On October 24, 2022, Tesla released its third quarter report. In the third quarter of 2022, its total revenue increased by 56% year on year to 21.454 billion US dollars, of which the revenue in the Chinese market increased by 64.8% year on year to 5.131 billion US dollars, and the revenue in the Chinese market in the first three quarters was 13.568 billion US dollars. The Chinese market is still Tesla's second largest market, accounting for 23.9% of the company's total revenue, second only to the U.S. market.
According to the data of the Passenger Car Association, Tesla China's sales volume in the Chinese market in the third quarter was 126000, accounting for 36.73% in the world.
Compared with the high "medium content" of the "new richest people", the "old richest people" are not so closely connected with the Chinese economy.
Microsoft under Bill Gates has never announced the proportion of revenue in China.
Bill Gates and China have repeatedly met, but their business is not good
However, in the online materials, some unofficial channels said that in fiscal 2016, Microsoft's revenue in China accounted for only 1.2% of Microsoft's overall revenue (even 0.78% at the lowest point).
Many people speculate that the revenue of China only accounts for 2-3% of Microsoft's total revenue at most.
The number of Amazon sites under Bezos, another "old richest man", reached 20 in 2021. Although 17 of these sites are open to Chinese users, Amazon China will stop operating in 2019. It seems absurd that the world's largest e-commerce platform has no sense of existence in the world's second largest economy.
Is the "old richest man" not interested in China's business? I'm afraid not.
Comparison between the old and new richest people
The old richest people did not ignore China, but their successful business strategies in Europe and the United States were severely hit in China.
In the 1990s, Microsoft set up a branch office in China, and now it has been 30 years.
Until this year, Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, still told the media that he was very optimistic about the company's business development in Asia, especially in China and India. He specifically named the Chinese market in the interview: "We have mainly focused on supporting multinational companies operating in China and other countries."
Hou Yang, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Greater China, said that the Chinese market is becoming more and more attractive. The company will increase the local labor force to more than 10000 people by adding about 1000 new jobs next year.
Although Microsoft continues to increase its weight in China, its high copyright fees have led to rampant piracy, and even the revenue generated from combating piracy has become one of Microsoft's important sources of revenue in China.
Cloud computing, which is mainly launched by Microsoft, also failed to occupy enough shares in China. On April 15, 2022, it was reported that Gartner, an authoritative research organization in the industry, released the data on the global cloud computing IaaS market share in 2021. Microsoft was second only to Amazon in the world, with a share of 21.07%, more than twice that of Alibaba Cloud, the third place.
Microsoft Azure develops moderately in China
However, according to the 2021 China cloud computing market report released by Canalys, a market research organization, the size of China's cloud infrastructure market has reached 27.4 billion US dollars, and Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, Tencent Cloud and Baidu Smart Cloud occupy 80% of China's cloud computing market, firmly occupying the leading position.
Bezos Amazon also perfectly demonstrated "how to break a good hand" in the Chinese market.
In 2004, Amazon, as one of the earliest e-commerce companies in the world, has won the market in Canada, Germany and Japan. Therefore, it boldly bought Zhuoyue and entered China with 87 million Internet population.
At that time, Ma Yun's Taobao was just a year old and was still in the "ancient online shopping era of online negotiation and offline payment". Liu Qiangdong has just started the "Jingdong Multimedia Website", whose main business is still selling optical and magnetic products in Zhongguancun. Amazon's only competitor is Dangdang, which also started its book business.
Now, nearly 20 years later, Alibaba and JD have accounted for more than 70% of China's e-commerce share, and even Dangdang is still relying on selling books to survive.
On July 18, 2019, Amazon closed the merchant entry channel of its Chinese website and stopped providing services to third-party sellers of Amazon's Chinese website. Recently, Amazon also announced that it will officially stop the operation of Kindle China e-bookstore on June 30, 2023.
It can be seen that the old richest people did not ignore China, but their successful business strategies in Europe and the United States were hit hard in China. To sum up the failure of the old richest people, Microsoft can't do piracy and Alibaba, and Amazon can't do Taobao and JD, which is in sharp contrast to the new richest people.
When Tesla first entered the Chinese market, it launched the Model S with a price of up to 70000 yuan and 800000 yuan, focusing on the concept of luxury cars, so as to establish a high-end image at one stroke. In addition to the geek image brought by the rocket launch, it has a clear and precise positioning in China, high profits and large sales scale.
Model S is the first model of Tesla to enter China
Not to mention, it was the Shanghai Super Factory that pulled Tesla out of the quagmire.
At least Tesla has its own competition in China. For LVMH Group, in China, which lacks luxury culture, it can be said that "only friends, no rivals".
Not only LVMH Group, but also several international luxury giants: Hermes, Richemont Group and Kaiyun Group will account for 47%, 45% and 38% of the revenue in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) respectively in 2021.
The wealth of luxury giants will become higher and higher as the "medium content" becomes higher and higher.
Competition for "medium content" will become normal
There are few areas left for the old and new richest people to pursue increment.
The emergence of this trend, in essence, comes from China's contribution to the world economy. In 2021, China's GDP will reach 114 trillion yuan, accounting for more than 18% of the global economy from 11.4% ten years ago.
Over the years, the contribution of China's economy to world economic growth has generally remained at about 30%, which is the largest engine of world economic growth.
The first reason for such an engine is that China has the consumption power brought by 1.4 billion people.
In the ten years from 2012 to 2021, China's per capita GDP has also risen from 39800 yuan in 2012 to 81000 yuan in 2021. In the ten years, China's per capita GDP has increased by 41200 yuan accumulatively, with a cumulative nominal growth rate of 103.6%, which means that the per capita GDP has doubled.
In 2012, the total retail sales of consumer goods in China totaled 21030.7 billion yuan, which more than doubled to 44082.3 billion yuan in 2021.
China's high-end consumption power is closely watched by all parties
In this huge growth, the consumer goods giants who have successfully completed their business in China have benefited. In FY2012, LVMH Group's revenue in Asia (excluding Japan) was about 7.9 billion euros, and ten years later, it has grown to 22.4 billion euros, an increase of more than 180%. This growth rate is far higher than its growth rate in other regions.
The second is from China's constantly upgrading manufacturing capacity.
In the past decade, China has gradually reduced the proportion of low-end manufacturing, upgraded to medium and high-end manufacturing, and made breakthroughs in communication equipment, consumer electronics, new energy and many other fields.
Such supply chain environment is more attractive to industrial enterprises that aim to develop and consume the Chinese consumer market.
Today, Tesla has built its supply chain in China. After the completion and production of the Shanghai Super Factory, the prices of its various models have declined rapidly, and it has become more competitive in front of domestic brands.
Recently, it was also reported that BASF, Germany's largest chemical company, would permanently move its business to China. It is reported that the main reasons are the increasingly high energy costs in Europe and the vast market in China.
BASF Germany is brewing a radical Chinese investment plan
Today, China has grown into the world's second largest economy, the largest manufacturing country, the largest trade in goods, the second largest commodity consumption, the second largest inflow of foreign capital, and the first largest foreign exchange reserve.
Jiang Xiaojuan, member of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress, vice chairman of the Social Construction Committee of the National People's Congress, and the meeting of the Chinese Academy of Administration, pointed out that China has the ability to provide new opportunities for the world with China's new development. China is a shaper of the international environment rather than a passive recipient.
Especially when the world economy is expected to be worse, the Chinese market is becoming more precious.
The latest comprehensive research report of the World Bank, Global Economic Recession is looming, shows that the world may move towards a global economic recession in 2023 as many central banks raise interest rates to deal with inflation; The OECD released its economic outlook report on November 22, saying that the growth rate of the US economy is expected to slow to 0.5% next year; The growth rate of the euro zone economy will slow to 0.5% next year; The UK economy will grow by 0.4% next year; Morgan Stanley estimates that in 2023, the GDP growth rate of the United States will be only 0.5%, the euro area will shrink by 0.2% year on year, and China's GDP may grow by 5% next year.
Under the increasingly complex global political and economic environment, there are few areas left for the old and new richest people to pursue increment. For every entrepreneur who wants to top the global business world, China is a market that cannot be ignored.
(Statement: This article only represents the author's view, not Sina.com's position.)
