"Southeast Asia Tencent" SEA farewell to the high valuation of its SHOPEE layoffs to stop bleeding

Economic Observation Network reporter Qian Yujuan

Suddenly

Li Ai, who lives in Shanghai, is a "Program Yuan". Earlier this year, she jumped from a foreign company and joined the cross -border e -commerce platform Shopee, becoming one of the back -end developers.

When recalling the star company, which was called "Southeast Asian little Taobao", Li Ai was excited. However, when talking to the Economic Observation Network reporter, she said on this platform that she had "stayed for more than half a year."

In the afternoon of September 19, HR suddenly called Li Ai to the office, "Give N+2, pay for 3 months." It turned out that Li Ai's department "only started recruiting people in Shanghai this year", but now Including her "at least 60%of people" was optimized.

According to Li Ai, since the end of August, individual departments in the company have begun to reduce employees. At that time, she conceived that "this year will not be tailored and will run next year." Although Li Ai was unprepared, she did not procrastinates because of the considerable compensation.

The next day, I saw news and discussions on "Shopee layoffs" issued on social media, such as: 90%of the department layoffs, and some departments were "destruction". "Our department is already the hardest hit area." Li Ai felt that some news from the outside felt too exaggerated. She revealed that some of the layoffs in other Shopee cores in Shanghai were 15%of the layoffs. Specific adjustment and optimization, there is no unified layoff ratio. "

Of course, it is not just Shanghai. On September 19th, the Shopee employees in Beijing, Shenzhen and other places also received an optimization adjustment, and some positions were notified of cutting. According to a reporter's interview, many people are fresh graduates who have entered the society in this round of layoffs launched by Shopee.

"The first time is so close to layoffs." A Shopee employee of Shenzhen Office ended the newcomer training. He was not in the post for two months, but on September 19th, he watched the colleagues who had discussed the "brain violence" on September 19th. Agreeing and leaving from the work software group one by one, "I left four people all at once." He couldn't help worrying about whether he could get the probation period.

Different from the anxiety of the above -mentioned employees. On the same day, Shen Hao, who was also in Shenzhen, is also a fresh graduate, was cut after the HR interview.

From the end of August last year to early November, the autumn recruitment time of more than two months, Alibaba, byte beating, Huawei ... After the major factories took turns to interview, Shen Hao said that he was "stunned fiercely." Until a SMS notification made him find hope.

In mid -November last year, Shopee informed Shen Hao to obtain recruitment qualifications after the 2022 school recruitment. However, the fire of this group of hope was only burned for a short few months. After Shen Hao officially joined two months, the bad news came. "Being off, compensation is normal." Shen Hao took a commemorative photo along with the work card before he handed over his computer and left the industrial position. "I graduated again."

SHOPEE expansion sequelae

Shen Hao, who was not deeply involved in the world, was suddenly cut and was very distressed by the next career direction. Unlike, Li Ai after leaving Shopee decided to rest for a period of time before he rushed to the next job.

"There were too many people before, and now they are desperate." When Li Ai was looking for a new post last year, he found that Shopee was "rich in wealth" on major recruitment platforms. The starting salary is at least 5K-10K ".

Last year, the crazy expansion state of SHOPEE, the company's "adding money and grabbing people", also made Zhong Mingmeng, who focused on research on corporate strategy and risk management, was impressed. Information."

Founded in 2016, SHOPEE is a business platform in the field of e -commerce, known as "Southeast Asia's Little Tencent". It mainly focuses on the Southeast Asian market and directly benchmark with Ali's Lazada.

In fact, the SEA supported by Tencent's investment in the e -commerce business has competed with Ali at the beginning of the e -commerce business. Li Xiaodong, the founder of SEA, dug Feng Yan, the manager of Lazada, and served as CEO on Shopee.

Chen Da, an executive director of Hechuan (Hong Kong), told reporters that for the rivals Lazada, Shopee, who "knows," adopts the logo of the domestic Internet giant's food market, "burning money for growth, crazy subsidies."

According to the previous data of the Southeast Asian e -commerce aggregation platform, in the third quarter of 2017, Shopee surpassed Lazada and became the largest e -commerce platform in Vietnam. In 2019, SHOPEE fully overtake Lazada on GMV, the latter Established in 2012, it worked early in the Southeast Asian market for 4 years, but was defeated by the "Later Show" Shopee.

With the victory, Shopee has continued to expand since 2020. The first is the growth of the internal team, and the size of the employees of the light IT department has grown by more than 10,000 people. , Spain and other emerging markets expanded. "How much does it have to burn the customer with Amazon PK?" Xiao Yi, the founder of Australia Capital, told the reporter of the Economic Observation Network that the reason why Shopee occupied the advantage of the Southeast Asian market, "Southeast Asian buyers and domestic customers' procurement ideas Almost, it is a cost thinking. Where is the cheap and much subsidy, it will go. "But the European and American markets are different. User thinking, stickiness, and market education have been solidified. The cost of investment will be higher.

Since 2022, SHOPEE has closed down France, India, Spain and other sites. Among them, French stations have been operated for only 4 months, and India and Spanish stations have been operated for only half a year. "Burning a lot of money to exchange traffic, but market growth is not as good as expected." Zhong Mingmeng believes that Shopee's judgment and expectations of the market have biased.

Chen Da does not think that Shopee's exploring emerging markets is a strategic mistake. "Internet companies will have a trial and error game." In terms of Shopee's 20121st data, revenue Times, as high as 136.4%; GMV is as high as US $ 62.5 billion, an increase of 76.8%year -on -year.

The high growth of this performance will inevitably promote the confidence of Shopee's expansion. Of course, from the perspective of his closure measures for overseas sites, this is the result of "trial and error immediately stop loss". In his opinion, in addition to the uncertainty of emerging markets, Shopee's Southeast Asian market, which has stood firmly, has also been impacted by the new crown pneumonia.

Xiao Yi, who had experienced entrepreneurial experience in the field of cross -border e -commerce, felt that the "going to sea" business was still hot. He found that Shopee was mainly sales in Southeast Asia and South American markets, and in China, it was mainly based on sellers to open stores. "It wants to use China to use China. The supply chain advantage develops yourself. "

However, it should be noted that "the epidemic situation has increased the domestic supply chain transfer and procurement costs, which makes the advantages of domestic related industrial chains not much different from Southeast Asia." In Xiao Yi Influential factors.

The parent company SEA is "removing foaming"

On the eve of SHOPEE's domestic layoff news, on September 15th, Li Xiaodong, the founder and CEO of its parent company SEA, sent an internal letter, which said, "The leadership team has decided that before the company realizes self -sufficiency, we will not be able to do it. Accept any cash remuneration. "

At the beginning of September, SEA (stock code: SE.US) announced to the public that Tencent's chief operating officer Ren Yuxin has resigned as the company's board of directors. right. According to public information, Tencent has reduced its holdings of SEA's 14492751 shares A shares in early 2022 to reduce the equity of SEA from 21.3 % to 18.7 %. Dollar.

A reporter from Economic Observation Network noticed that from September 20, 2021 to September 19, 2022, US stocks closed. For a whole year, SEA's stock price fell from $ 327.5/share to $ 59.8/share, compared with October last year At the high point, the market value of SEA today has shrunk by about 170 billion US dollars.

"The original valuation is too bubble." Chen Da has been focusing on US stock research. He saw that Amazon had fallen a lot from high points. The valuation of SEA is going down. "It wants to survive and can only reduce costs and increase efficiency." In Chen Da's view, Tencent's reduction has proven that SEA can no longer rely on investors' money to maintain expansion. "It has no choice."

Xiao Yi also feels the same, especially in the context of the current downward pressure on the global economy, "global financing will not be too optimistic." , "Financing difficulties, tight cash flow is also the key cause of its strategic contraction."

The reporter saw that not only the stock price of SEA plummeted, but the second quarter of the 2022 financial report announced on August 16 showed that the overall adjustment of SHOPEE in the second quarter of EBITDA was as high as US $ 648.1 billion, compared with the loss of 579.8 million compared with the same period last year last year The US dollar continues to expand.

"The economic downturn, the major shareholders withdraw their capital, and the various negative buffs are superimposed." Zhong Mingmeng felt that the current SHOPEE parent company already has pressure on the capital chain, and the "blood loss" business department will inevitably be optimized. From the perspective of talent management, she also analyzes the development strategy of Shopee's radical expansion, which will inevitably lead to problems such as inverted internal salary. In this way, the transmission generates incomplete talent development mechanism. Improper issues, "When this is insufficient on the development of the platform, it will have a negative impact on the reputation of the corporate."

In view of the uncertainty of the current macro situation, analysts from the Futu Securities Investment and Research Team believe that the same cost as the domestic Internet industry reduces cost and increase efficiency, Shopee first focuses on resources to the core business. "Later operating effect. "The layoffs need to spend money." Chen Da felt that the loss of Shopee's loss was normal, and layoffs would also have a certain lag effect in the next step. He predicted that the operating data of Shopee in the next two or three quarters will further reflect the cost reduction and efficiency.

The above -mentioned analysts of Futu Securities Investment Research, SHOPEE closed the local business of Mexico, Colombia and Chile, and also completely withdrew from the Argentina market, "focusing on the Southeast Asian market to achieve profitability." When it comes to expectations, the revenue growth of subsequent Shopee will also release greater profit margins.

Chen Da also has a consensus. "If Shopee really can improve the operating efficiency and make money, its valuation expectations will be better." In his opinion, Shopee still has high growth logic. Futu Investment Research analysts also pointed out from the perspective of the industry that the penetration rate of e-commerce in Southeast Asia is currently at a lower level. The penetration rate within the range of 5%-15%is high compared to the 25%penetration rate in mainland China. space.

Regardless of the previous withdrawal station adjustment or the recent layoff optimization, it shows that it has not achieved good results in the corresponding market. "This is related to the current competition status of the target market." From the perspective of senior analyst Zhang Zhouping, this also has a certain relationship with Shopee's platform model. He believes that Shopee, which is rooted in the Southeast Asian market, has a more thorough development advantage and understanding of the market.

(Requirements for the interviewed objects, Li Ai and Shen Hao in the text are a pseudonym)

- END -