中國和西方科技巨頭的東南亞對決

When Sea Limited launched its prospectus to list on the New York Stock Exchange last month, the South East Asian ecommerce and gaming group sparked a war of words — or rather numbers — with Lazada, which disputed its rival’s claims to be the region’s top dog.

上個月，當Sea Limited公佈在紐約證交所(NYSE)上市的招股說明書時，這家東南亞電商和遊戲集團引發了一場與Lazada公司的關於用詞（更確切地說是數字）的戰爭，後者對其競爭對手聲稱自己是該地區老大的說法提出了質疑。

The spat, between companies respectively backed by China’s tech giants Tencent and Alibaba, was part of a proxy war and shone a light on what Bain & Co dubs a “clash of the titans”: a broader battle for share in this market of 200m digital consumers, who last year spent $50bn online, according to the consultancy.

這兩家公司分別由中國科技巨頭騰訊(Tencent)和阿里巴巴(Alibaba)支持，它們之間的口角可以說是一場代理人之戰，暴露了貝恩諮詢公司(Bain & Co.)所說的“巨頭之間的衝突”——一場更廣泛的、在這個擁有2億網絡消費者（去年在線上支出了500億美元）的市場上爭奪份額的戰爭。

It involves not just Chinese and local players but also multinationals such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, the latter rolling up in Singapore earlier this year. This showdown in Southeast Asia comes after Chinese and Western players have neatly carved up the major markets: the multinationals controlling the US and Europe and Alibaba and Tencent ruling the roost in China, where Facebook, Google’s search engine and Twitter are all blocked.

這場戰爭不僅牽涉到中國企業和當地企業，還涉及谷歌(Google)、Facebook和亞馬遜(Amazon)等跨國企業。今年早些時候亞馬遜已進軍新加坡。東南亞對決之前，中國和西方企業已乾淨利索地瓜分了主要市場：幾家跨國科技巨頭控制着美國和歐洲，阿里巴巴和騰訊在Facebook、谷歌搜索引擎和Twitter都被禁止的中國稱雄。

“The importance of Asia is coming to the forefront,” says Karim Temsamani, president of Google’s Asia-Pacific operations.

谷歌亞太業務總裁卡里姆?泰姆薩曼尼(Karim Temsamani)表示，“亞洲的重要性正在突出。”

“Half the world’s population is here and household wealth is set to grow faster than anywhere else over the next 15 years. This is the centre of the world again, and companies that understand the people here and the way they use technology are going to win in this region.”

“世界一半人口都在這裏，未來15年這裏的家庭財富增速將超過其他所有地區。這裏再次成爲世界的中心，那些瞭解這裏的人及其使用技術的方式的企業將在該地區取得勝利。”

As well as customers, both sides are fighting over investments. In the past few months, Alibaba has lifted its stake in Lazada to 83 per cent and bought into Indonesian ecommerce group Tokopedia; Tencent has reportedly invested in Indonesia’s ride-hailing start-up Go-Jek, while Expedia put money into regional online travel group Traveloka.

除了爭奪客戶外，雙方也在競相投資。過去幾個月，阿里巴巴把對Lazada的持股增加至83%，並且投資了印度尼西亞電商集團Tokopedia；騰訊據稱投資了印尼叫車初創企業Go-Jek；Expedia投資了該地區的在線旅遊集團Traveloka。

“There’s a lot of deal activity now,” says Florian Hoppe, partner at Bain & Co in Singapore. “It’s clearly an escalating battle and the impacted sectors are getting broader and broader.”

“現在有很多交易活動，”貝恩公司駐新加坡合夥人弗洛裏安?霍珀(Florian Hoppe)表示，“這明顯是一場日益白熱化的戰爭，受影響的領域越來越多。”

That wide frontline sees the groups stretching their tentacles into the ecosystems around ecommerce, such as payments and logistics, while offering other services to keep consumers hooked within a single app — such as gaming, food delivery and messaging — to capture more of their time and money.

在這條廣泛的戰線上，這些企業把觸角伸向圍繞支付和物流等電商服務的生態系統，同時它們還提供其他服務——比如遊戲、外賣和通訊服務——把消費者牢牢吸引到單一應用內，以此進一步贏得客戶的時間和金錢。

These models mirror those pioneered by Tencent and Alibaba in China. The Western multinationals, while increasingly flirting with similar models, are counting on customising their international offerings to capitalise on the region.

這些模式複製了騰訊和阿里巴巴在中國開創的模式。日益嘗試類似模式的西方跨國企業，正依靠提供定製化的國際服務在該地區獲利。

The US groups, says Mr Hoppe, are enjoying record quarters in the region on the back of growth there. “Facebook is playing a massive role on mobile, and YouTube is a real asset [for Google] out here. They are making good money on ads, and benefit from the fragmentation of the ecosystem, as recommendations and search matter a lot more in Southeast Asia than in mature online markets with dominant digital players.”

霍珀表示，在東南亞經濟增長的背景下，美國企業正在該地區享受創紀錄的季度業績。“Facebook正在移動領域大展拳腳，YouTube是（谷歌）在這裏的實際資產。它們在廣告上賺得盆滿鉢滿，並從生態系統碎片化中獲益，因爲比起已經有主導性數字企業的成熟線上市場，推薦和搜索服務在東南亞重要得多。”

Mobile ad spending in the six countries that make up Southeast Asia — Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore — is expected to reach $1.4bn next year and surpass $2bn in 2020, according to eMarketer. Sea, formerly known as Garena, controversially includes Taiwan in its greater Southeast Asia definition.

據eMarketer預計，印尼、馬來西亞、越南、菲律賓、泰國和新加坡這六個東南亞國家的移動廣告支出明年有望達到14億美元，並在2020年超過20億美元。原名Garena的Sea在大東南亞區的定義中納入了臺灣，此舉頗具爭議。

The region, notes Max Bittner, Lazada chief executive, is far from homogenous — it has different languages, religions and cultures — but what the countries have in common is “an exploding middle class, comparable to China a decade ago”.

Lazada首席執行官馬克斯?比特納(Max Bittner)指出，該地區各國差異很大——擁有不同的語言、宗教和文化——但各國的相同之處在於“中產階級爆炸式的增長，可以與10年前的中國相媲美”。

“In Southeast Asia, this middle class explosion is happening simultaneously with the ongoing smartphone revolution, and all the growth in retail is driven solely by ecommerce,” he adds, noting that the catalyst was the $100 smartphones that began going on sale in late 2012.

“在東南亞，與中產階級激增同時出現的是正在進行中的智能手機革命，電子商務獨自推動了全部的零售業增長，”他補充稱，並指出這一發展的催化劑是2012年末市面上開始銷售的100美元的智能手機。

Making money on ecommerce is a tougher proposition, notes one player: “We’ve seen competitors come and go quite frequently over the past five years.”

通過電子商務賺錢是一件更難做到的事，一名業內人士指出：“在過去5年裏，我們看到競爭者相當頻繁地進入和退出。”

Sea’s initial public offering prospectus makes the same point, warning “we may fail to monetise our business effectively” and “we have a history of net losses and we may not achieve profitability in the future”. Its operating loss grew to $205m in its latest fiscal year and $150.5m in the first six months of this year.

Sea的首次公開發行(IPO)招股說明書提出了相同的觀點，警告稱“我們也許無法有效把業務變現”，並且“我們有一段淨虧損的歷史，在未來也許不會實現盈利”。上一財年，該公司的營業虧損增加至2.05億美元，今年上半年則爲1.505億美元。

This partly reflects bloated operating and marketing costs. Logistics are tough — unlike the US or Europe, some of these markets lack a large efficient postal network or big regional players like UPS or DHL — and the land-grab means companies are using big subsidies to woo customers.

這部分反映出過高的經營與營銷成本。物流很艱難，與美國或歐洲不同，這些市場中有一些缺少一個高效的大型郵政網絡或諸如聯合包裹(UPS)、敦豪(DHL)的大型地區性物流公司。而圈地意味着，各公司在用高額補貼招徠顧客。

Analysts and investors note that connections and local knowledge hands an advantage to domestic players. Tiang Lim Foo of Seed-Plus, an early-stage investor, says it was local knowledge that helped Indonesia’s Go-Jek, as it filled its fleet with motorbikes in traffic-jammed Indonesian cities, reducing Uber to the sidelines.

分析師和投資者指出，人脈關係和本地知識賦予了本土企業一種優勢。早期投資機構Seed-Plus的Tiang Lim Foo說，正是本地知識幫助了印尼的Go-Jek，該公司在交通擁堵的印尼城市裏用摩托車組建了車隊，把優步(Uber)擠到了市場邊緣。

Amazon, meanwhile, whose entry into Singapore earlier this year was marred by being forced to halt orders when demand exceeded its ability to ship goods, has been reduced to co-opting Uber cars to deliver, according to local players.

另一方面，本地人士表示，今年早些時候進入新加坡的亞馬遜出師不利，由於需求超過貨物配送能力，其被迫暫停訂單，如今不得不用優步的車輛配送貨物。

With a big and growing market at stake, there is little to suggest any reining in of spending any time soon, as competition for online business in the region intensifies.

事關這樣一個龐大、不斷增長的市場，面對該地區在線業務競爭的加劇，各公司短期內幾乎沒有抑制支出的絲毫跡象。

As Sea warns would-be investors in its prospectus, this means the odds of success are weighted in favour of the biggest players: “As ecommerce in [Greater South East Asia] is relatively new, competition for market share is particularly intense?.?.?.?Global ecommerce companies?.?.?.?in particular may have greater access to financial, technological and marketing resources than we do.”

正如Sea在招股說明書中警告潛在投資者的那樣，這意味着，大公司擁有更大的成功機會：“由於電子商務在（大東南亞地區）相對較新，市場份額爭奪尤其激烈……尤其是，跟我們相比，全球性電商公司可能獲得更多的金融、技術和營銷資源。”

Groups vie for Southeast Asia cloud advantage

延伸閱讀：各集團在東南亞爭奪雲優勢

Behind all ecosystems looms the cloud — vast data centres capable of storing the troves of data thrown off by gamers, shoppers and all the other users of internet services offered by the big US, Chinese and local players.

所有生態系統背後都籠罩着雲——即巨型數據中心，能夠存儲遊戲玩家、購物者、以及大型美國、中國和當地公司提供的互聯網服務的所有其他用戶產生的海量數據。

Demand for cloud services is compounded by different regulatory regimes across the region, some of which require local data to be held onshore. Google, one of the big cloud providers globally, clearly intends to be a player in Southeast Asia too — toilet cubicles at its Singapore offices were recently plastered with ads appealing: “Google Cloud team is looking for customer engineers in APAC”.

該地區各國的不同監管體制使對於雲服務的需求複雜化。有些國家要求把本地數據存儲於境內。作爲全球範圍內的大型雲服務提供者之一，谷歌明顯打算也在東南亞成爲本地公司——不久前其新加坡辦公室的衛生間隔間貼上了廣告：“谷歌雲團隊正在亞太地區尋找客戶工程師”。

Sea’s IPO filing, lamenting the region’s lack of qualified technical talent, notes its dependence on third-party data centre providers, echoing Snap’s admission of reliance on Google’s cloud services in its own IPO documentation earlier this year.

Sea在IPO申請中哀嘆該地區缺乏合格的技術人才，指出了其對第三方數據中心提供商的依賴，跟Snap在今年早些時候自己的IPO文件中承認對谷歌雲服務的依賴類似。

Thus, the aggressive hiring of engineers and building of data centres, particularly by Alibaba and Google.

所以，各公司都在大張旗鼓地招聘工程師，建造數據中心，尤其是阿里巴巴和谷歌。

“There’s an arms race with cloud,” says Niranjan Arasaratnam, Singapore-based global head of the TMT sector for Linklaters, the legal firm. “Microsoft, [Amazon Web Services] and Google are all pushing [ahead], but my money’s on Alibaba and Tencent, because they will have the connections and cash and know-how to grow that business.”

“雲領域發生了一場軍備競賽，”年利達律師事務所(Linklaters)駐新加坡的全球TMT行業主管尼蘭詹?阿拉薩拉特納姆(Niranjan Arasaratnam)說，“微軟、亞馬遜網絡服務(Amazon Web Services)和谷歌都在向前衝刺，但我的資金投給了阿里巴巴和騰訊，因爲它們將擁有發展雲業務的人脈、資金和專業知識。”