Author | Liu Baodan From performance to market confidence, Meituan is walking out of a three-year low point, but Wang Xing is not stopping there - he has even bigger plans. Going overseas has become a must for Chinese companies. Meituan, which has been warming up for 8 years, has finally made up its mind to put going overseas on the agenda. Recently, Meituan began recruiting senior engineers for international silver enterprise direct connection. After the model was successful in the Hong Kong market, Meituan officially kicked off its overseas expansion, accelerated recruitment and put the first stop of the overseas expansion in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. Going overseas is a critical turning point, which means that after more than ten years of capacity accumulation, Meituan has to export its local life capabilities to the world, which is as significant as the replication of TikTok by ByteDance. In the wave of Internet companies going overseas, Meituan went overseas later because local life patterns are more important than social, e-commerce and other industries. However, Wang Xing must make this move. Against the background of intensified domestic competition and the shrinking of community group buying, he must find a new growth story. On his entrepreneurial journey, Wang Xing is still determined to create a new business legend in this global adventure. A must-have question. Meituan has fought a beautiful takeaway battle in Hong Kong. On May 6, Measurable AI, a market research firm, released the latest data showing that by March 2024, according to the number of orders, KeeTa, the takeaway business of Meituan in Hong Kong, has a market share of 44%, rising to the largest takeaway platform in Hong Kong. However, Hong Kong is only a stopover for Meituan's overseas expansion, and Meituan has set its real meaning of going overseas in Saudi Arabia. Wall Street news learned that Meituan has been recruiting people around the direction of going overseas in the past two months. The positions include engineers, overseas human resources and operation experts, international payment and transaction product managers, mainly responsible for payments, employee management and related products in overseas markets. More importantly, the recruitment of local talents. More than a month ago, Meituan posted relevant recruitment information on LinkedIn and the Middle East recruitment platform Baye.com, with Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, as the place of work. From the city selection, Meituan did not choose the United States with a larger market space, nor did it choose Southeast Asia where culture and food are more similar, but chose Saudi Arabia. It can be seen that Meituan's overseas expansion strategy still has a heavy experimental component and is more cautious. Wang Xing is not fighting an unprepared battle. For this overseas expansion, Meituan has been planning for many years. As early as 2016, Wang Xing began to consider the issue of going overseas and visited Silicon Valley, Berlin, Israel, Jakarta and other places. In 2017, Meituan officially laid out overseas accommodation business, first connecting hotels in nearly 100 countries overseas to the Meituan application. At that time, the domestic and foreign takeaway wars were in full swing, and with Meituan's listing in Hong Kong in 2018, Wang Xing's overseas strategy was forced to be shelved. Since then, Meituan has also made a series of international investments, including Swiggy in India, Gojek in Indonesia, and Opay in Nigeria, involving food, taxis, payments and other fields, to prepare for going overseas. Along with the frequent news reports of Meituan's victory in Hong Kong, Meituan's overseas plan was finally brought to an unprecedented strategic height in 2024, and Wang Xing once again rushed to the forefront. In February, Meituan put the home business group, the in-store business group and other businesses into the core local business sector, and appointed Wang Putong as CEO, while Wang Xing personally took charge of overseas business, which ensured the landing of the overseas expansion strategy in the organizational structure. In fact, before the confirmation of the overseas expansion strategy, Wang Xing personally visited the Middle East last May and met with members of the Saudi royal family, laying the foundation for Meituan's layout in Saudi Arabia.

In today's weather is good. Today's weather is good.

After six months of the 'Short Essay' controversy, the development prospects of Dongfang Zhuanxuan have once again been shrouded in shadow.

On June 9th, Dong Yuhui stated in a self-produced interview program 'I Love Myself, I'm Great' on Douyin that he is very resistant to selling things and still does not enjoy his job. Although the work he is doing now is meaningful, it does not bring much joy.

As a super anchor, Dong Yuhui is a key figure in Dongfang Zhuanxuan's rise in the live e-commerce track. His remarks undoubtedly shook the outside world's expectations for him as an anchor's professional development, which also raised concerns in the capital market.

On the first day after the holiday, Dongfang Zhuanxuan closed at HKD 13.900, a drop of 9.27% in the stock price.

Combined with Yu Minhong's recent negative comments on Dongfang Zhuanxuan, Dongfang Zhuanxuan is falling into a new crisis. Since 31 May, Dongfang Zhuanxuan's stock price has been continuously falling, with a seven-day drop of up to 28%, and its market capitalization has evaporated by HKD 4.6 billion.

To a great extent, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui, as core figures of Dongfang Zhuanxuan, have revealed the true state of the company's development and shaken investors' confidence in the company's future development.

In the program, Dong Yuhui explained why he rarely introduces a product. 'I rarely use noisy music or exciting sounds. In that anxious environment, people are prone to make decisions about whether to buy or not. I am particularly afraid of one day becoming the kind of person I do not like.'

Since the 'Short Essay' incident at the end of last year, Dongfang Zhuanxuan has begun the process of removing top anchors. Currently, it seems that the removal of Dong Yuhui is unsuccessful, and his importance to Dongfang Zhuanxuan's peers has surpassed Dongfang Zhuanxuan itself.

According to Feigua data, in the first five months of this year, Dong Yuhui's live streaming room sales amounted to RMB 932 million, RMB 411 million, RMB 620 million, RMB 538 million, and RMB 533 million, respectively, higher than those of Dongfang Zhuanxuan. Currently, Dong Yuhui has 19.58 million fans on Douyin, while Dongfang Zhuanxuan has 30.266 million fans, and the company has lost more than one million fans in the past six months.

In other words, Dong Yuhui's influence on the company is growing, and his departure or retention will undoubtedly become one of the most critical factors affecting Dongfang Zhuanxuan's development.

Yu Minhong's remarks have also brought to the surface long-hidden problems in Dongfang Zhuanxuan.

On May 31st, Yu Minhong stated in Zhang Wenzhong's Douyin live streaming room that 'Dongfang Zhuanxuan is now doing everything in disorder.' Correspondingly, Dongfang Zhuanxuan's 'Beautiful Life' live streaming room has been questioned recently for being a 'solicitation-style live streaming', and consumers believe that Dongfang Zhuanxuan has changed its knowledge sharing style of live streaming to cater to the market.

Yu Minhong also said that in the past year, he has been subjected to more online humiliation, accusations, and insults than in the previous hundred lifetimes. He is now ready to stay away from the business world, leaving more time for himself to travel and play, and not to work hard or get involved in disputes anymore.

Perhaps Yu Minhong is just talking with an old friend, but as the chairman and CEO of Dongfang Zhuanxuan, his ideas have formed a pessimistic expectation for the company's future development.

Some investors are confused about Dongfang Zhuanxuan's operations and believe that the company needs to be responsible to investors if they are willing to buy company stocks.

Management issues are a problem that Dongfang Zhuanxuan must face. Even though Yu Minhong stated in his apology letter that 'my biggest wish in life is to surpass disputes and roam the world. I said this twenty years ago, but it does not mean that I am no longer responsible for New Oriental and Dongfang Zhuanxuan's operations,'

But at sixty years of age, Yu Minhong is currently in a semi-retired state. In his live streaming room in Tibet, he revealed that he wants to travel throughout China and the world's mountains and waters before he is eighty, and share it through live streaming. Obviously, this status makes it difficult for him to supervise frontline live e-commerce.

Behind a series of difficulties, live e-commerce industry is facing increasing competitive pressure. This is the deeper reason for Dong Yuhui's insomnia and anxiety, and the driving force behind Dongfang Zhuanxuan's transformation into a 'solicitation-style' live e-commerce.

In the view of Zhuang Shuai, a retail e-commerce expert and founder of Bailian Consulting, novelty, plus Dong Yuhui's IP effect, made Dongfang Zhuanxuan quickly popular, but knowledge live streaming will inevitably experience a degree of viewing fatigue, and the efficiency of sales conversion itself is not high.

Dongfang Zhuanxuan needs to take measures quickly to boost investor confidence. Zhuang Shuai believes that Dongfang Zhuanxuan needs to do a good job in the supply chain in the fiercely competitive e-commerce industry, improve its product strength and price competitiveness, and at the same time, the company needs to do a good job in both shelf e-commerce and team building.

Due to the double reduction policy, Dongfang Zhenxuan had to transform, but fortunately, the company seized the trend of live streaming e-commerce. After the transformation, the company did not attach enough importance to super anchor Dong Yuhui, which caused the "small composition" incident and was finally resolved with the personal intervention of Yu Minhong.

The live streaming e-commerce track conforms to the trend of social development, and Dongfang Zhenxuan has also successfully completed the transformation. Whether it is launching an independent APP, developing a member system, or entering the Taobao platform for live broadcasting, Dongfang Zhenxuan attempts to take multiple paths and explore more growth possibilities.

This once made investors see new possibilities for the company in the live streaming e-commerce track. In January of this year, Dongfang Zhenxuan's stock price rose to a new high of HK$75.5, setting a new record since the company went public.

However, unlike the education industry, the live streaming e-commerce track is closer to the market and users, and the requirements for the company are obviously higher. Just half a year later, Dongfang Zhenxuan encountered a crisis again, exposing many weaknesses of the company.

This is an important reminder that Yu Minhong needs to think clearly about what kind of state Dongfang Zhenxuan should adopt on the live streaming e-commerce track.