According to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in the first four months of this year, my country's Internet and related service companies above designated size (hereinafter referred to as Internet companies) completed business revenue of 443.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.7%, and the growth rate increased by 1.3 percentage points from the first quarter.
Experts said that during the epidemic, while maintaining revenue growth, Internet companies also took advantage of their technological advantages to build online and offline bridges, which played a positive role in ensuring the smooth supply of the industrial chain and alleviating uncertainties such as demand contraction and supply obstruction.
A consensus on increasing R&D investment
In the first four months, my country's Internet companies above designated size invested 25.09 billion yuan in research and development, an increase of 10.4%.
"The Internet is a typical technology-intensive industry, and innovation is the cornerstone of the industry's survival." Fu Baozong, director and researcher of the Industrial Office of the Industrial Institute of the China Academy of Macroeconomics, said that in the face of the ever-changing market environment, Internet companies can only continue to increase research and development. Only in this way can we seize the opportunity in the new technological revolution and industrial transformation.
Despite the increasing downward pressure on the economy, the R&D investment of Internet companies has not decreased but increased.
In the first quarter, Tencent's R&D expenditure was 15.38 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36%; Baidu's core R&D expenditure reached 5.134 billion yuan, accounting for more than 20% of Baidu's core revenue for six consecutive quarters; JD.com invested 4.384 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7%.
Guan Bing, director of the Institute of Industrial Economics of CCID Research Institute, believes that increasing corporate R&D investment and empowering the development of manufacturing has become the consensus of Internet companies.
At the same time, the national level has continuously released signals to support the development of the digital economy, which has strengthened the confidence of industry enterprises to strengthen core technology research and empower the real economy.
"In April, my country's Internet start-ups completed equity financing of US$1.84 billion, an increase of 37.3% month-on-month. The improvement in financing has provided support for enterprises' R&D investment." said Tu Xiaojie, director of the Industrial Development Research Department of the Institute of Policy and Economics, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
Empower the real economy
Empowering the real economy has become a new growth point for Internet companies.
By actively assisting the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, Tencent's revenue structure has continued to change from virtual to real, and the single-quarter revenue of the financial technology and enterprise services segment, which represents the integration of digital and real, has increased to 42.8 billion yuan.
Seizing the opportunity to use technology to serve the development of the real economy, Baidu's intelligent cloud business has entered a high-speed growth channel, and its revenue in the first quarter has increased by 45% year-on-year.
At present, JD.com's industrial Internet platform has connected nearly 1.8 million sets of industrial equipment, providing digital transformation services for 50 industrial belts, 201 industrial parks, 1,050 large enterprises and nearly 1.2 million small, medium and micro enterprises.
Since last year, the growth of the consumer Internet has been sluggish, and the traditional consumer Internet business has faced great difficulties. Some enterprises are making efforts to the industrial Internet and have achieved initial results.
"In the future, the two-way integration of Internet companies and physical enterprises will have a catalytic and multiplier effect. On the one hand, it will boost the development of the Internet industry again; on the other hand, it will promote physical enterprises to speed up the improvement of efficiency and enhance the momentum of development." Fu Baozong said .
Growing confidence in development
In the first four months, the development of Internet companies was quite differentiated.
Among them, Internet data service enterprises developed rapidly, and their business income increased by 30.4% year-on-year; the decline in the income of life service enterprises expanded, and their business income decreased by 20.2% year-on-year.
Guan Bing believes that the differentiation of various enterprises is mainly related to the new round of epidemic.
On the one hand, prevention and control measures have reduced the scope of residents' activities and suppressed the growth of consumption of life services; on the other hand, measures such as working from home in some cities have driven the development of information services and data companies.
In addition, my country proposes to deploy new infrastructure such as 5G base stations and big data in advance. The accelerated deployment of new infrastructure projects in various regions is also conducive to stimulating the growth of Internet information services and data services.
The confidence of Internet companies in the future development continues to increase.
The person in charge of Dewu APP said that the young consumer group has become an important force for the steady development of the company, and it is expected to form a new demand traction.
Tu Xiaojie analyzed that many factors affecting the development of Internet companies in the past period are changing, the domestic business development momentum will recover, and the industry still has a lot of room.
"The digital economy is still in the fast lane of rapid development, but in the process of development, it is necessary to take into account development and security, and to achieve standardization and order. In the next step, Internet companies will comply with policy orientation and market demand, strengthen key core technology research, and promote the digital economy. Integrate and develop with the real economy, and continue to make efforts in equipment empowerment, enterprise value assignment, and industry empowerment." Guan Bing said.
(Economic Daily reporter Huang Xin)