Behind Meituan'S Antitrust Investigation: Capital Enclosure And Flow Dividend Model Should Be Reconsidered

The heavy blow of antitrust has been falling recently.

After Alibaba, on April 26, the General Administration of Market Supervision announced that, according to the report, meituan carried out "one out of two" and other suspected monopoly behaviors. In the evening of the same day, meituan announced that after receiving the notice from the State Administration of market supervision, the company will actively cooperate with the regulatory authorities in the investigation, and at present the company's business is normal.

Perhaps because of the bad news, meituan shares closed at HK $312.6 on April 27, up 2.49%. According to the monopoly law, the penalty amount is 1% - 10% of the comprehensive turnover of the previous year. According to Alibaba's previous antitrust penalty standard, meituan could be fined 4.6 billion yuan, or about $700 million, if the fine was 4% of the previous year's sales.

In fact, the market is not surprised by the investigation of meituan. Wang Zheng, President of Zhejiang Hezhong Institute of legal science and technology intelligence and director of Zhejiang Taihang law firm, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter that the social value of anti-monopoly regulation lies in that Internet giants often restrict the operators in the platform, open stores in other competitive platforms, or participate in other competitive platform activities to form a lock-in effect, In order to reduce their own competitive pressure, improperly maintain and consolidate their own market position. This deviates from the development concept of open, inclusive and shared platform economy, which ultimately limits consumers' right of free choice and fair trade, and damages consumers' interests.

Therefore, in addition to meituan, it is possible that other Internet giants will be investigated by antitrust. No matter what the final punishment result is, Internet giants must reflect on their own development mode, only benign competition can have long-term development.

Meituan announced that the company will actively cooperate with the regulatory investigation- Visual China

"Choose one from two" mantra

From the announcement of the State Administration of market supervision, it can be seen that both Alibaba and meituan are under investigation for suspected monopoly of "one of two choices". Specifically, it refers to "the platform takes advantage of its dominant position and the dependence of businesses to take improper measures to force operators to choose one from another among the platforms".

In February of this year, Zhejiang Jinhua intermediate court found out that meituan platform pushed some information that denigrated the platform to the merchants and asked them not to cooperate with famo, but only with meituan, which constituted unfair competition, and ordered meituan to compensate meituan by 1 million yuan; In March, meituan was once again sentenced by the court to compensate the economic loss of 352000 yuan to hungry Mo because of unfair competition.

The earlier "one out of two" behavior appeared in the e-commerce industry. As early as 2015, Jingdong Mall sued tmall platform because tmall forced merchants to choose one from two and refused to participate in activities such as "double 11" and "618" held on Jingdong or other platforms. In June 2019, Galanz, a household appliance brand, complained that due to its cooperation with pinduoduo during the "618" period, tmall platform limited the current and blocked the search of its brand, resulting in the failure of more than 200000 products to be sold normally during the event.

The incident has caused a stir in the industry. Jia Kang, President of Huaxia new supply Economics Research Institute and former director of Financial Science Research Institute of the Ministry of finance, wrote that after the rapid development of digital "new economy", a few leading enterprises with great influence have been formed. The path of its success is generally supported by "angel investment". After breaking through the bottleneck period of "burning money", it soars under the law of "flow is the king", which obviously has the intuitive characteristics of "oligopoly".

However, digital platform companies can not be classified as "antitrust" just because of their large market share. Because in the era of digital economy, the success of innovation and development of platform companies is bound to be manifested as a larger market share supported by "flow is king" and the intuitive pattern of "oligopoly". What the management department punishes is "choose one from two", not punish the enterprise to be bigger and stronger.

In fact, in the era of traffic as the king, the Internet platform's desire for offline resources has become the top priority and the core of its service users. Just as Alibaba relies on brand merchants, Didi travel depends on drivers, and meituan relies on local life businesses, only after obtaining more retention and services can the platform win in the fierce competition, because the Internet industry believes in "Matthew effect", and only strong enough players can occupy the leading position.

A well-known investor in an interview with the 21st century economic report said that the important feature of the Internet economy is decentralization, and more and more vertical markets have appeared oligarchs“ The cruelty of business competition requires you to be the first, because users and capital give the old three and four too few opportunities. For entrepreneurs, the first requirement is to survive. However, most Internet companies only innovate in business models, and there is no particularly high technical threshold. Therefore, they will adopt the simple and crude method of choosing one from another. On the whole, what the law forbids is the abuse of monopoly status to infringe on the rights and interests of consumers, which is conducive to the future industry competition and allows the latecomers to have some new opportunities. "

Return to healthy competition

In the process of industry development, the competition between enterprises is inevitable. In addition to the Internet platform, there are the same worries in the traditional field.

In May 2018, lucky coffee published an open letter directly pointing out that Starbucks was suspected of monopolizing. Several suppliers of lucky coffee were ordered by Starbucks to stand in a "one out of two" style. Lucky coffee said Starbucks frequently pressed its supplier partners to stand in line. According to reports, many suppliers of lucky coffee coincide with those of Starbucks. Many suppliers of machinery and equipment, packaging materials and food raw materials have reported that Starbucks asked them to stand in line and stop supplying to lucky coffee.

Although the matter did not end in the end, but "choose one from two" is still an inevitable choice for industry giants. On April 15, after TIANYAO was punished for its monopolistic behavior, Yangzijiang pharmaceutical was fined 764 million yuan by the State Administration of market supervision for its monopoly agreement. Anti monopoly supervision is extending to more industries.

According to a report published by bocom international, the judgment basis of the State Administration of market supervision on meituan may be as follows: meituan's market share of takeaway; Whether meituan takeout can control the service price and business flow; Capital and technical capability; The degree of merchant's dependence on platform and whether it depends on platform data leads to high migration cost; The threshold of new entrants; And whether there is evidence of "one out of two" and other acts.

According to the report, the potential administrative penalty has little impact on meituan's business operation, and may affect the stock price in the short term; In the future, the industry competition is still reflected in meeting the needs of users, driving the turnover of merchants, and optimizing the distribution cost through the platform scale effect and technical ability.

Looking back on the development of the Internet in the past two decades, we can see that in the "first half", the Internet giants quickly occupied the market by relying on technology and capital. In the "second half", the days of making money by demographic dividend and traffic dividend are over. Internet giants should reflect on the past model and create marketing methods that adapt to the future. After all, the future will test core technology and whether it really creates value.

According to the incomplete statistics of 21st century economic report, Alibaba and meituan have been punished for monopoly problems, while Tencent, Baidu, tal, Yuewen, Jingdong, Didi, byte skipping and other companies have also been fined by the General Administration of market supervision. The continuous attack of the regulatory authorities also reflects that the anti-monopoly supervision of the Internet industry in China is not relaxed, but may be further tightened. The reflection and rectification of the giants will continue.

(Editor: Li Qingyu)