I can become stronger by paying salaries. I have one billion employees!

Chapter 417 $40 Billion Missing? The 3SB War Expands its Attack Scope, Slapping Li Yanhong in the Face!

On May 6th, Senlian Capital and Qiandu.com went into full-scale battle!
Li Yanhong had anticipated this.

He had met with Chen Yansen several times and was well aware of the operating styles of Kuaidi Dache, Kuaidi Dache, and Gaode Map: they would never back down in the face of provocation.

"The first step is to capture 40% of the market share; the second step is to hold the line; the third step is to gradually penetrate and erode the mature market that Senlian Capital has painstakingly cultivated."

Li Yanhong gave instructions to Gong Zhenbing, Wang Zhongpu, and Xiang Hailong.

His plan was brilliant: let Senlian Capital take the lead, while he would lay the groundwork behind the scenes, and launch a full-scale counterattack against Qiandu when the time was right.

This was precisely the best opportunity that Li Yanhong believed in.

With its group-buying, food delivery, and ride-hailing businesses already established in North China, East China, Central China, and South China, Baidu is now leveraging its capital and traffic advantages to compete for a larger share of the market from Senlian Capital.

However, even fast and convenient taxis are not pushovers to be easily manipulated!

First, let's look at Kuaipao. Backed by three giants—Senlian Capital, Tencent, and Ali—it boasts primary and secondary traffic entrances from multiple software platforms, including Pinduoduo, Gaode Maps, QQ, WeChat, and Taobao, occupying a 90% market share.

Having successively defeated Ele.me, Meituan Waimai, and Dianping Waimai, they have rich competitive experience. With the addition of three key generals, Shan Jiawei, Zhang Xuhao, and Liang Changlin, they would be defeated not only by a cross-industry player like Baidu, but even if Ali were to enter the fray, he would be defeated.

Looking at Kuaidi Dache, it has both exposure and orders provided by Gaode Maps, QQ, and WeChat, and it also has powerful algorithm technology, order allocation, and route planning capabilities.

These valuable data are compiled from hundreds of millions of orders.

Baidu has only been in the ride-hailing industry for a year, with just over 20 million orders. How can it compete with Senlian Capital?
Based solely on a verbal promise of 200 billion yuan?
It’s just wishful thinking!
If financial investment alone could determine the outcome of business competition, then Tencent's Paipai.com would have already joined the top tier of the e-commerce industry.

Li Yanhong shouted enthusiastically, but Chen Yansen had no interest in paying him any attention.

Since both Kuaidi Dache and Kuaidi Dache have already established their project structure, operational strategies, and marketing tactics, he doesn't need to interfere too much.

The task of implementation can be left to Pei Yi and Cheng Weixing.

However, the high-profile promotion by Senlian Capital and Qiandu terrified their competitors!
The owners of Meituan, Dianping, Fantong.com, as well as Dahuangfeng Taxi, Baimi Taxi, and Dudu Taxi are so angry they want to curse.

They never expected that after surviving the group-buying wars and the ride-hailing wars of 2012, just when they thought they could get a piece of the pie by following the giants, Senlian Capital and Baidu launched another subsidy war.

Everyone knows in their hearts that the final winner is still unknown, but they will most likely be among the first to die.

Should I join the group buying and food delivery services like Qiandu Group Buying, Waimai, and Kuaipao Group Buying, which offer red envelopes and coupons?

However, we don't have enough funds!

If we don't follow suit, orders will decrease, and we'll just be sitting here waiting to die.

The same applies to ride-hailing services. After all, last year, when Kuaidi and Didi were locked in fierce competition, individual users received three discounts per day, and the starting fare was free.

Who can withstand this kind of gameplay?
In no time, industry peers were calling the hotline to report the issue, and they also took to Weibo to denounce Li Yanhong and Chen Yansen for malicious competition and attempting to achieve a monopoly in the industry.

"I advise you to mind your own business and behave yourself!"

"Play if you can afford to, leave the table if you can't, understand?"

"I hope Senlian Capital and Qiandu can fight forever, it's so awesome! As soon as I logged into Qiandu Waimai, I immediately received a 10 yuan no-minimum-spend coupon!"

"KuaiPao is giving away ¥15 off ¥20 coupons, hurry up and grab them!"

Netizens who enjoyed the benefits were overjoyed and left comments in the comment section.

The happiness of ordering takeout for just two or three yuan and taking a taxi for free has returned.

Before the two sides could even exchange a few words, they started throwing money around like crazy.

Having gone through several major battles, Pei Yi remained calm. Although he also invested a lot of money in marketing activities, Kuai Pao's operation was more refined compared to Baidu's extensive approach.

While Qiandu Takeaway and Qiandu Group Buying offer no-threshold red envelopes, he offers users full-reduction red envelopes, but with larger amounts than Qiandu.

He knew all too well that users attracted by no-threshold red envelopes had low retention and poor stickiness; calling them "coupon hunters" wouldn't be an exaggeration.

Therefore, they would rather increase the size of the red envelopes and give the discounts to users with higher value.

At the same time, a recharge promotion will be launched, offering a 10 yuan no-minimum-spend coupon for every 100 yuan recharged, with no upper limit. The intention is to use the pre-paid value promotion to lock in users' future consumption needs in advance.

Cheng Weixing followed suit, only modifying the activity dates of last year's ride-hailing credit recharge plan before relaunching it.

at the same time.

Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, Office Building No. 9.

Chen Yansen leaned back on the sofa and called Zhou Hongyi, saying, "The design plan for 360 F1 isn't finished yet?"

"Thank you for your concern, Mr. Chen. Please give me another half month. There are still some minor issues with the hardware and Aurora Future OS in terms of compatibility."

Zhou Hongyi replied with a smile, then paused and added, "President Chen contacted me not just to inquire about the progress of 360 F1, right?"

"Are you interested in joining forces to take a piece of the pie from Baidu Search?" Chen Yansen asked tentatively.

"I knew that with Mr. Chen's personality, he would definitely take the initiative. As for attacking Baidu, I'm very interested in that."

Zhou Hongyi readily agreed.

First, it was to consolidate the cooperative relationship with Senlian Capital; second, it was to suppress Baidu and increase 360 ​​Search's market share.

For businessmen, the first thing that comes to mind is profit.

After chatting for more than ten minutes and initially confirming their competitive strategies, Chen Yansen hung up the phone.

Next, he called Lei Yijun, Ma Wenteng, and Zhang Chaoyang.

When Little Ma heard that he was going to cooperate with Zhou Hongyi, he felt as uncomfortable as if he had swallowed a fly. However, out of consideration for Chen Yansen, he finally nodded in agreement.

After listening, Zhang Chaoyang thought for a moment and replied, "Sogou can't cooperate on things like traffic hijacking, data scraping, one-click copying of Baidu content, and competing with Baidu for advertising agents. But since Mr. Chen has spoken up, Sogou will stand on the same side as Lingxi and 360."

Chen Yansen was slightly taken aback, thinking to himself: Old Zhang may seem unassuming, but once he speaks, he's full of wicked schemes.

The other party's ambiguous statement was clearly a dirty trick on him.

"Thanks, I'll treat you to a drink later," Chen Yansen said with a smile.

“I didn’t say anything,” Zhang Chaoyang said, waving his hand.

Chen Yansen put down his phone, turned on his computer, and assigned Zhang Yiming a few tasks.

That afternoon, Lingxi, 360, Sohu, and Tencent formed a temporary 'search engine alliance' with only one goal: to dethrone Baidu from its position as the industry leader.

Li Yanhong has been in this position for far too long.

Chen Yansen's idea was simple: expand the battlefront, bring Baidu's main business into the competition, and thoroughly hurt Li Yanhong so that the other party would know to be afraid.

He wanted to slap Li Yanhong hard across the face.

In the evening, when users entered the URL 'qiandu' into Lingxi Browser, 360 Browser, QQ Browser, and Sogou Browser, they either encountered a network error or were automatically redirected to their own search engine's homepage.

For users, the familiar feeling has returned.

It is clear that the search engine industry is waging a war without bloodshed.

The next morning, as soon as Li Yanhong sat down at the company, he glanced at the data backend and noticed something was wrong.

Baidu Search's daily active users on both PC and mobile platforms have declined, and even its advertising revenue has slightly decreased.

He immediately summoned the heads of the data department and search business. "Boss, I saw user feedback on social media that when they use the 360 ​​browser and enter our official address, it automatically redirects to 360 Search."

Li Shuo said with a dark face.

"Has Zhou Hongyi had another episode?" Li Yanhong asked rhetorically.

Last November, all the major search engine companies signed the "Internet Search Engine Service Self-Discipline Convention" in Beijing. Zhou Hongyi's move was undoubtedly a disregard for the Information Association and the Internet Association.

How dare he?

Li Yanhong couldn't help but wonder.

In fact, Zhou Hongyi wouldn't be foolish to fight alone, but he was accompanied by Chen Yansen, Ma Wenteng, and Zhang Chaoyang.

The law does not punish the masses; at most, they will be scolded afterward. If they can capture 5% of the market share, 360 can also make a fortune.

"The same goes for Lingxi Browser, QQ Browser, and Sogou Browser," the data director added quietly.

“???” Li Yanhong frowned, his eyes filled with anger.

He was a smart man and quickly guessed who was behind it all.

Damn Chen Yansen, Senlian Capital and Qiandu.com are fighting in the group buying, food delivery, and ride-hailing sectors. What do you mean by entering the search field?
Li Yanhong was getting anxious!

To put it bluntly, the revenue share of O2O business is not high, and the biggest loss is marketing expenses.

The search business is different; it accounts for as much as 80% of revenue and is the group's main source of income. If it is affected, Baidu's stock price will also fluctuate.

During the 3B war last August, Baidu's market value evaporated by billions of US dollars in a single day.

Li Yanhong has to be wary!
After a moment's thought, he took out his phone and made a few calls. After hearing the other party's promise, Li Yanhong couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Although Senlian Capital, Tencent, 360, and Sohu are powerful, would they dare to go against the higher-ups?

What he didn't know was that the Information Association and the Internet Association only agreed but didn't do anything, and after finishing the call, they tossed the phone aside.

From the perspective of higher authorities, Baidu's dominance in the search field, holding a 60-70% market share, is inconsistent with the regulatory trend of internet monopolies.

Although Chen Yansen, Ma Wenteng, Zhou Hongyi, Zhang Chaoyang, and others did not give any instructions, they were in line with the needs of the times.

By the third day, they still hadn't received a reprimanding call from the regulators. Zhou Hongyi suddenly realized what was going on and intensified his attacks, directly blocking all of Baidu's products within his own software ecosystem.

Immediately afterwards, a channel distributor conference was held, promoting the adoption of the CPS advertising model and aggressively poaching Qiandu's agents, launching a ruthless campaign to eradicate them.

They're vying for users on one hand and agents on the other.

Lingxi, Penguin, and Sogou Search have also launched similar advertising policies to attract Baidu's agents.

Chen Yansen's move resulted in the death of 10,000 enemies but also the loss of 800 of his own.

The slap left Li Yanhong completely stunned!
At this moment, he had no time to worry about anything else. He hurriedly increased loyalty training for his agents and strengthened regional control in an effort to stabilize his agent system.

But what loyalty can a businessman possibly have?

Distributors will flock to whichever company offers the lowest fees, the largest user base, and the easiest way to make money.

Although top-tier agents look down on Lingxi, Penguin, and Sogou Search, all the smaller and mid-tier agents, as well as those eliminated for failing to meet KPIs, have been absorbed by these three companies.

Zhou Hongyi was the most ruthless, offering rebates of 30%-40% to win over distributors.

Typically, a company's advertising recharge funds need to enter the Baidu system through an agent, from which the agent can earn a rebate of 15%-25%.

When Lao Zhou made a move, the profits immediately doubled.

He simply couldn't believe that anyone didn't love money.
As it turned out, Zhou Hongyi's tactics were both accurate and ruthless, leaving Li Yanhong in a state of utter chaos.

Chen Yansen, Ma Wenteng, and Wang Xiaochuan followed suit, using low prices to win over Qiandu.com's service agents.

CNZZ, a third-party monitoring agency that is most sensitive to traffic changes, released industry data changes on May 8.

开战之前，流量份额是千度66.4%、360搜索8.5%、灵犀8.3%、搜狗7.1%、企鹅1.4%；

三天后，千度59.4%、灵犀9.7%、360搜索8.9%、搜狗7.3%、企鹅1.6%。

Sogou and Tencent are more laid-back, more like henchmen waving flags and cheering from behind the scenes.

Lingxi and 360 are the most ferocious!

The media dubbed this search engine battle the '3SB War'.

3 represents 360, Senlian Capital represents S, and Qiandu represents B.

On May 8, as soon as the stock market opened in the United States, Baidu's stock price plummeted. The opening price was $87.3 per share, but it dropped to $82.6 in less than ten minutes.

Investors across the ocean also received the news that Qiandu.com was in a bad situation, and many chose to sell their shares.

At the close of trading that day, Baidu's stock price fell below $80 per share, resulting in a market capitalization loss of $22 billion.

It has only been three days since Chen Yansen launched the '3SB War'.

The following morning, Lingxi Search added an artificial intelligence module to its homepage, which can be seen as a combination of search and a rudimentary language model.

Compared to its competitors more than a decade later, this little plugin, named 'Moss', actually had very basic functionality.

But it changed search engine services in 2013.

Previously, when users searched for a question, they had to look for the answer on the search results page, but 'Moss' provides the answer directly.

Although 'Moss' is not very capable when faced with complex problems, it can answer some simple common sense questions with almost 100% accuracy.

If users think the answer is wrong, they can also browse the search results page and find the answer in the complex webpage.

Furthermore, 'Moss's' answer interface is clean and tidy, and there are no annoying ads.

With content seeding on Toutiao, Xiaohongshu, and Douyin, and exposure from Aurora Future, Orange App Store, and Lingxi Browser, Lingxi Search, now equipped with the 'Moss' plugin, has become even more powerful.

In the second week of May, its market share surged, quickly approaching 13%, while Baidu's market value evaporated by nearly 40 billion US dollars, a drop of more than 15%.

at the same time.

Baidu has repeatedly failed in the group buying, food delivery and ride-hailing markets. It spent money but did not achieve the results that Robin Li was satisfied with.

Senlian Capital pinned Qiandu down like it was a child.

For the first time, domestic internet peers realized that Baidu and Senlian Capital might not even be in the same league.

Baidu should be kicked out of the 'BAT' group!
Seeing that the authorities weren't taking any action, Li Yanhong decided to launch his own crackdown, and products from Fansen Capital and 360 could no longer be found in Baidu's ecosystem.

He selectively ignored Tencent and Sogou.

The main concern is that they might make too many enemies, which Baidu.com might not be able to withstand.

……

……

“13.1%? This is just the beginning,” Chen Yansen said to Zhang Yiming on the phone.

(End of this chapter)