Recently, Beijing Netease Media Co., Ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes. Ding Lei withdrew from the positions of legal representative, general manager and director and was replaced by Li Li, CEO of Netease media** According to relevant media reports, Netease insiders said: "this is a normal industrial and commercial change." This is the same as Zhang Yong's resignation as chairman and general manager of tmall and Taobao in April this year.
Author / Han Wenjing
It is worth noting that after the industrial and commercial change, Ding Lei is still the largest shareholder of Netease media, holding 99%, but Ding Lei's move still aroused speculation.
Many people believe that this is another Internet giant who retired after Ma Yun, Liu qiangdong, Zhang Yiming and Huang Zheng and began to "delegate power".
On the one hand, the founders of major Internet companies have chosen to "abdicate" in the current year, and it has become a new trend to hand over the stick to new successors; On the other hand, with Netease's diversified business gradually showing results, as well as the smooth sub division, the anti risk ability is further enhanced. If Ding Lei really "retired" in the follow-up, Netease will not be in danger at least.
Will Ding Lei, who is strongly bound with Netease, gradually fade his personal color and transfer power to the next successor?
Pave the way for "retirement"
China's Internet territory has always had a place for Netease. Now, Sohu Sina has long fallen out of the historical stage. Only Netease is left as the elder active in the first tier of China's Internet.
In June 2000, Netease landed NASDAQ , 29 year old Ding Lei rang the bell for the first time, making Netease one of the first Chinese stocks listed in the United States.
After a lapse of 20 years, Netease returned to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June 2020. It was deeply branded by Ding Yilei 20 years ago and 20 years later.
Among many Internet bigwigs, Ding Lei is an ideal A person with a strong sense of nationalism. Ding Lei, who is obsessed with technology, engraves the truth in his bones.
Starting from email and transitioning to the PC era of portal and game, Ding Lei's personal style has always been casual and decisive, which is also reflected in some strategic decisions of Netease.
From 2018 to 2019, Netease stripped out the comic, blog, financial management, koala e-commerce and other businesses that are at a loss or in the mire of operation, and vigorously increased its music cloud, strict selection, Youdao and other businesses.
Once in order to promote Netease cloud music radio, Ding Lei went to a nightclub to guest play DJ, "raising pigs during the day and playing discs at night".
In 2019, Netease Youdao Listing on the New York Stock Exchange; Two years later, Netease cloud music landed on the Hong Kong stock exchange with an issue price of HK $205 / share. After his own son Netease, Ding Lei has harvested two listed companies with grandchildren.
Spin off the business and promote the independent listing of subsidiaries has been the norm in the technology industry, which can alleviate the operating pressure of the company and attract more capital to expand the scale.
On the one hand, the spin off of Netease's subsidiary has been smooth in the past two years. On the other hand, with the diversified business development of Netease gradually on the right track, it is speculated that Ding Lei can "retire" at ease.
In the first half of this year, Chinese stock companies announced their financial reports one after another. In the context of the great shock of Internet enterprises, Netease, which made a lot of money with a dull voice, released a fairly bright financial report.
Overall, Netease's annual revenue was 87.61 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.9%; Among them, the net revenue of games accounted for 72% of the net revenue of 2021, and continued to lead the growth of Netease with a high proportion.
It is worth mentioning that there are still market regulatory risks in the online game industry. Under the high revenue proportion of the game business, any disturbance about the regulation of the game market will have a great impact on the enterprise.
In addition to the game, Netease is actively exploring the second growth curve in recent years.
From the perspective of Netease's revenue structure in 2021, Netease's main businesses are online game services, Youdao, Netease cloud, innovation business and other four sectors, and the revenue of each business accounts for 71.69%, 6.11%, 7.99% and 14.21% of the total revenue respectively.
Under the influence of the "double reduction" policy, Netease Youdao, which focuses on online courses, has been directly affected. After shifting its business focus, Netease Youdao finally turned loss into profit in the fourth quarter of 2021, with a net profit of 31 million yuan.
Netease cloud music's net income in fiscal year 2021 was 7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 42%, and its operating gross profit margin increased to 2%, thus becoming a regular. Netease said it benefited from the increase [growth and] of net income( http://stock.finance.sina.com.cn/usstock/quotes/CKHUY.html ) With the improvement of cost control, the gross profit margin of Netease cloud music has been positive for three consecutive quarters, and the gross profit margin of Q4 has increased to 4.1%.
Among them, the innovation and other business sectors where Netease yanxuan and Netease media are located have developed steadily, with a net income of 12.4 billion yuan in 2021.
Ding Lei used "fruitful" to describe Netease's 2021 year. He said that Netease's businesses have developed steadily. The growth of Netease cloud music, Netease Youdao and innovation businesses is commendable.
Starting from the portal and prospering in games, Netease's diversified new story is being recognized by the market. With the multi-point flowering of business, if Ding Lei really "retired" in the follow-up, Netease will not be in danger at least.
"Those who go cannot be admonished, and those who come can still be pursued". On the way to the next stop, Netease aims at the meta universe.
Last December, Netease announced its next-generation Internet technology architecture for the "meta universe" for the first time, and launched the virtual human SDK "Youling".
At this year's Netease earnings conference, Ding Lei said that Netease has always attached great importance to R & D investment. After long-term technology accumulation, it has been laid out in meta universe related fields such as VR, AR, artificial intelligence, engine, cloud game and blockchain, and is fully equipped with the technology and ability to explore and develop meta universe.
Gradually "decentralization"
In fact, this is not the first time that Ding Lei "stepped down" from Netease related companies.
According to tianyancha data, as early as January 2021, industrial and commercial changes occurred in yiqihang Network Technology Co., Ltd., Ding Lei withdrew from the position of director of the company, and Netease Lede Technology Co., Ltd. withdrew from the company, with the original shareholding ratio of 30%.
In December 2020, Ding Lei withdrew from the shareholders of Hetian feiji (Changting) Agricultural Technology Development Co., Ltd.
In June 2020, Ding Lei no longer served as the chairman of Shenzhen zhongshunyi Financial Services Co., Ltd.
In recent years, many founders of Internet companies and high-level torrents have retreated bravely, including gradually retreating from [Alibaba] since 2013( http://stock.finance.sina.com.cn/usstock/quotes/BABA.html ) Ma Yun and JD Founder Liu qiangdong, pinduoduo Founder Huang Zheng, founder Zhang Yiming, etc.
With the development of the times, the previous strategy of strong binding between founders and the company may be becoming a "bad policy".
In September 2019, Ma Yun officially stepped down as chairman of Alibaba. In July 2020, Huang Zheng, founder of pinduoduo, announced his resignation as CEO of the company. In January 2022, Zhang Yiming resigned as the legal representative of several affiliated companies. In April 2022, Liu qiangdong stepped down as CEO of JD group and was promoted by Xu Lei, President of JD group; In the same month, Zhang Yong withdrew from the legal representative of tmall and Taobao.
These "abdicated" predecessors also have traces to follow in their retirement.
Take Huang Zheng for example. One year before he stepped down as CEO, he began to step down from his administrative position in pinduoduo, focusing more on the development of the company itself; Xu Lei, who was cultivated by Liu qiangdong, has joined JD for more than ten years. Last September, he was promoted to the post of president of JD group and stepped into the center of power step by step.
Ding Lei's resignation from Netease related companies has been speculated by the outside world that "decentralization" and "abdication" are also reasonable.
In 2016, at the third world Internet Conference, when talking about the issue of enterprise successors, Ding Lei said he was still very young, only in his forties, but Netease made preparations very early.
"In fact, the core of the shift handover problem is the issue of authorization. Netease began to do accurate authorization for this matter a long time ago. I have been thinking about how to cultivate it for many years." Ding Lei mentioned that, for example, the company's game Department has created a very successful game project of Yin Yang division in China. The team can do better under his authorization. He has been thinking about the shift handover for a long time.
In 2017, his best friend Wu Xiaobo asked Ding Lei: what is the most important thing now after 20 years of entrepreneurship? Ding Lei replied with two words: talent.
In essence, the transfer of power is to keep the foundation of the enterprise evergreen and make it more dynamic and innovative. But without exception, even if they quit, they are still leading the growth and development of the company in their own way. Now it seems that Ding Lei also seems to have the sign of "retirement". Where will he and Netease next stop?