On March 21, retail e-commerce company Pinduoduo released its fourth quarter financial report for 2021.

According to the financial report, Pinduoduo’s revenue for the quarter was 27.2309 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3%.

Not long ago, two other retail e-commerce giants, Alibaba and JD.com, also released their financial reports for the fourth quarter of 2021, ending with year-on-year growth of 10% and 23%, respectively.

　　Some industry experts believe that the revenue of the three e-commerce companies is showing a "low growth rate" trend, abandoning the transformation of high growth to high-quality growth, and the domestic digital retail e-commerce market has entered a period of stock competition.

At the same time, with the strong rise of new short video e-commerce companies such as Douyin and Kuaishou, the retail e-commerce industry has opened a situation of "separation of heroes".

　　"Low growth rate" becomes the key word

　　The financial report shows that in terms of revenue, Alibaba’s revenue was 242.580 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%; Jingdong Group’s net income was 275.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23%; Pinduoduo’s revenue this quarter was 27.2309 billion yuan, an increase of 3% year-on-year.

　　The relatively sluggish revenue growth of the three e-commerce companies highlights that "low growth rate" has become the key word for domestic e-commerce platforms in the past year.

The industry generally believes that the slowdown in retail e-commerce revenue growth is an inevitable result of the slowdown in domestic online consumption growth.

According to Tianyancha data, there are currently over 9 million e-commerce companies in my country.

In 2021, it is the first time in 20 years that the e-commerce industry has experienced a negative monthly year-on-year growth.

In November 2021, total online retail sales fell by 4.12% year-on-year.

　　Taking Alibaba as an example, it is widely believed that this is the worst financial report since Alibaba’s IPO, with a year-on-year revenue growth of only 10%, which is the slowest quarter in the past few years.

In the last quarter of 2021, with the blessing of national shopping festivals such as "Double 11", the national shopping demand will be released, but Ali's results are not satisfactory.

　　From about 60% in 2018 to about 30% in 2020, and then to 10% in the fourth quarter of 2021, Ali's quarterly revenue growth continued to decline.

Some industry experts believe that in addition to the overall industry environmental factors, the pattern of China's e-commerce industry has changed from the absolute monopoly of Ali's "can't find an opponent with a telescope" to a situation of being divided into groups.

　　The sinking market becomes the main battlefield

　　In 2018, Pinduoduo rose rapidly from the sinking market, allowing Alibaba and JD.com, which originally used first- and second-tier cities as their main battlefields, to find new channels for user growth.

After three years of fighting, the three e-commerce companies have achieved varying degrees of growth by sinking into the market when the number of users is already very large.

　　According to the financial report, as of December 31, 2021, the global annual active consumers of the Alibaba ecosystem reached about 1.28 billion, a year-on-year increase of 64.3%; the number of active buyers for many years reached 868.7 million, a year-on-year increase of 10%; JD.com in the past 12 years. The number of monthly active purchasing users was about 570 million, a year-on-year increase of 20.72%.

　　All three e-commerce companies are sinking the market to divide up users as much as possible.

JD.com has grown by nearly 100 million users within a year, 70% of which are from sinking markets such as Jingxi.

Jingxi is the fastest growing segment within JD.com in the past year, contributing the largest user increment to JD.com.

Alibaba attributed the new users to its Taote business, which focuses on sinking markets.

In 2021, Taote will bring 180 million users to Alibaba.

　　It is worth noting that, judging from the quarter-on-quarter data in the fourth quarter, the growth of active users of the three e-commerce companies in the fourth quarter has slowed down under the promotion of Double 11 and New Year.

The sinking market is still very attractive to the three e-commerce companies, but after four years of competition, the sinking market has gradually become a "hard bone" that is difficult to crack.

　　Mo Daiqing, a senior analyst at the E-commerce Research Center of Netease, believes that for the three platforms, the traffic dividend has passed, and the growth of users has gradually peaked. They all need to work hard on user retention, consumption stickiness and conversion.

　　Compete to become "twin brothers"

　　Although each company has different advantages and development strategies, it is worth noting that the competition among the three e-commerce companies is further intensifying, following, imitating, and surpassing each other, and turning themselves into the appearance of each other.

　　At the beginning of 2022, Ali took the first step to further explore the self-operated model. After Daishan took over the digital business sector in China, he officially announced the opening of a Tmall self-operated flagship store and named it "Maoxiang".

The ownership of the goods of Maoxiang's self-operated flagship store belongs to the platform, which directly pays the brand owners to purchase the goods, and the platform delivers the goods directly to consumers.

Ali chose to advance from the core category of JD.com, which is also the most suitable category for self-operated 3C categories. It remains to be seen how the result will be, but the "gunpowder smell" of competing with JD.com is already full.

　　"Pinduoduo has changed from focusing on high cost performance to high-quality products, selling goods to focusing on industry and brand building, so that it can return to its business essence and find a way to sustainable development. After the "choose one from two" was eliminated, more apparel brands Entering JD.com has invisibly diverted Tmall’s traffic and transaction volume, and differentiated its advantages in traditional core apparel categories.” Mo Daiqing said that under the competition, the three e-commerce companies have entered each other’s “hintland”.

　　Some industry experts believe that the pattern of the retail e-commerce market is changing, and the power of new e-commerce companies such as Douyin e-commerce, Kuaishou e-commerce, and Xiaohongshu is also rising rapidly.

In the future, the entire e-commerce landscape will show a diversified and multi-platform development trend.