Tag: Business

Why CFOs may not be good CEOs

I believe excellent CEOs need a set of unique skillsets – they need to be able to unite people, rally the morale, be bold and innovative in strategy.

Good CFOs are very good at numbers, very analytical when presented a well-defined question. They are also responsible for financing and executing M&As which can be strategical.

I think excellent CFOs can bring CEO-like value when they proactively pursue M&A deals or actively manage acquired companies. However, this is not a base case.

I could be wrong, but more often than not, CFOs don’t really need to be innovative or think outside the box to be okay – they are fine to be pragmatic and consistent, and sometimes expected to be so.

When CFOs become CEOs, there might be an attendance to deliver near-term numbers rather than focus on real value creation.

It could also go wrong if they rely too much M&As – bad deals will cost a fortune and even mediocre deals carry opportunity costs.

Alibaba used to have Daniel Zhang as CFO and he became CEO in 2015. When he stepped down in Sep 2023, the annualized return during his tenure is at best bond-like.

That’s why I don’t feel good about Mixue Group – it announced that its CFO Zhang Yuan will become CEO, effective immediately. Mixue founders will stay as co-chairman though.

Let’s see.

Two values of e-commerce and Meituan

There are two core values provided by “e-commerce” platforms, transaction and discovery.

If you know what you want, search in Taobao, and put an order, Alibaba provides the “transaction” value.

If you just want to order McDonald’s food delivery, Meituan also provides the “transaction” value.

What shopping mall provides and what Taobao used to be famous for is that consumers are just wandering around / 逛 – this is how the “discovery” value can be provided.

“Discovery” is deserved to earn higher, and almost as a cut to final sales – businesses believe they win this incremental order because of you. In “transaction” mode, businesses believe they have already had the order; thus transaction providers can only earn the fulfillment fee.

In the transaction mode, the lowest transaction cost provider will naturally win more busines.

In the discovery mode, the provider that can generate more “new sales” can win more business.

So Tencent mini-program / mini-shop is good for luxury brands as the they just need a place to list. Consumers almost already know these brands. The lower than transaction cost the better.

Douyin, Xiaohongshu are better in discovery mode as users spend a lot of time in their app “wondering”. The apps are more likely than others to create incremental demand – users don’t know they want it until they see it.

Previously, transaction mode and discovery mode are served in the same place like Taobao.

This is also true for Meituan in food delivery or in-store dining. Chinese consumers scroll Meituan app for look for food delivery or dining ideas. Even if they are already in the restaurant or know what to order, they also go to Meituan to make related transaction.

Meituan also provides pre-defined sets for many in-store dining – this is tricky. Is this discovery mode? Consumers don’t know what to eat even they are already in the restaurant.

But I think it’s still more transaction mode. Think about the fixed tasting menus provided at a Michelin restaurant. Meituan doesn’t help create incremental demand here if I browse and purchase the $199 set via the app – the value is transaction or like credit cards.

All I want to say is that if Meituan will be like Taobao, competition will be from two fronts – one is by providing lower transaction cost, another is by stealing the discovery cake.

拭目以待

Where does Alibaba’s bullishness come from?

Alibaba recently outlined a 5-year target to $100bn AI+Cloud revenue, however many investors are either not convinced or skeptical of future monetization.

Why Alibaba has $100bn target in the first place?

Besides the delayed AI boom in China with potential breakthrough in domestic AI chip production, what are the drivers?

1) Amazon CEO Andy Jassy outlined $600bn goal in 10 years recently

$100bn would be about 700bn rmb and matches the AWS “number”.

2) Within Alibaba, there could be potential internal politics consideration

E-commerce is still the most profitable core business; Jiang Fan leads the e-commerce efforts, spending billions in quick commerce etc.

Eddie Wu leads the AI+Cloud and is CEO of Alibaba. This is growing fast but still not as profitable.

These two people might be fighting for resources and territory within Alibaba.

AI+Cloud needs to be bold.

700bn rmb rev with 15% EBITA margin will be ~100bn rmb EBITA.

This could be matching Alibaba’s China e-commerce adj. EBITA in 2026, which dropped from ~200bn though, due to massive subsidy.

For Jiang Fan, quick commerce is a way to paint growth picture for overall china e-commerce business.

Otherwise, Eddie Wu might get more of Alibaba’s incremental spending, which then will almost ensure Wu’s rise and Jiang’s fall.

Jiang was also smart in not picking the fight with PDD, which is probably harder to win. The fight with Meituan is not easy, but if you have to pick one to fight with between PDD and Meituan, Meituan is the choice.

Tencent also has already made the choice – it sold Meituan stake and kept PDD stake.

Fighting with PDD is more defending vs. fighting with Meituan is winning new businesses. KPIs will look more exciting in the new business.

Stopping disclosure is a sure pressure in near term

Tencent Music $TME will no longer report the operating metrics on a quarterly basis such as Monthly Active Users (MAU) for online music services and Number of Paying Users for online music, starting from next quarter.

The stock dropped 24.65% in a day, with other concerns like more competition from ByteDance’s Soda Music.

It’s almost a sure thing that stopping disclosure on key operating metrics will make stock price under pressure.

A very similar case is Netflix in 2024.

In April 2024, Netflix announced it would stop reporting quarterly membership numbers and Average Revenue per Member (ARM) starting in 2025.

Netflix shares fell ~8% the day after the Q1 2024 report.

Here is the last report on these operating metrics.

 

The company argued that subscriber count is no longer the best indicator of health due to new revenue streams like advertising and “extra member” fees.

Netflix still discusses those in shareholder letters and gives financial guidance, like this for 4q25 earnings.

While $TME gave similar explanations, it didn’t give investors 4 quarters to adapt.

As advertising and other IP related offerings scale, and as we offer multi-tiered membership for online music subscriptions, the business impact of each paid membership varies. As a result, we are increasingly focused on revenue and profit as our primary performance indicators.

Given this evolution, starting from next quarter, we will discontinue the disclosure of certain quarterly operating metrics, including online music MAU, paying users and ARPPU.

We will instead report the number of total paying users across our music services annually, as of year-end.

– 4q25 TME earnings release

 

Three 40bn RMB investments

Bytedance’s Volcano Cloud: to lose 40bn RMB in 2026

Alibaba is subsidizing over 40bn RMB per year via Taobao Instant Commerce. (Over 50bn announced in July 2025 for next 12month; reiterated importance of subsidy in 2026 earlier this year)

Tencent announced more than 36bn investments in AI product development for 2026 with its 4q25 earnings, with no return KPI near term and more to come in the future.

These are 0.1% of China GDP already!

Better compensation, subsidy to consumers and businesses are also different kinds of GDP-boosting initiatives; big companies are doing their social responsibility jobs as well.

Apple vs China Internet: 礼尚往来

Apple cuts App Store fees in China by 5% – from 30% to 25%. Apple also said it commits to offer fee level that is “not higher than overall rates in other markets”.

This benefits the big Internet companies in China.

In return, these Chinese Internet companies are making efforts to promote and sign more people up for OpenClaw-like services, which can drive Apple sales via Mac Mini etc.

“Exchange of courtesies”.

OpenClaw is such a gift to Tencent

1/ Tencent’s own foundation model Hunyuan is not impressive. However, OpenClaw-like applications doesn’t rely on any single model. Tencent can be more neutral than other Chinese internet giants which shall prioritize their models. So weakness in Hunyuan now becomes a strength.

2/ Chatbot-like applications like Yuanbao is cannibalizing WeChat, whether it’s eating more users’ time or it’s hurting WeChat’s user experience during CNY red pocket campaign. If Yuanbao becomes the best in competition, WeChat shall indirectly be weakened; if Yuanbao loses to Doubao etc., Tencent also loses. However, OpenClaw-like applications leverages and enriches WeChat ecosystem. Winning the OpenClaw-like competition is a more coherent strategy for Tencent.

3/ Tencent is one of the most trusted among tech giants in China. It’s security capability is one of the best in China, which is needed here.

Nio finally looks to make some money, so what?

How much losses has Nio made over the past few years?

Over 80 billion rmb, from 2020 to 2025.

In the worst years, Nio lost over 20 billion rmb per year.

Meanwhile, investors are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel – Nio made 0.5bn rmb in operating profit in 4q25, thanks to rising sales of large premium SUVs, which carries higher gross profit margin.

You need to take it with a grain of salt though.

1/ Fourth quarter is usually a good quarter

Indeed, Nio only guided non-gaap breakeven for full-year 2026.

Well, at least it’s not accumulating more losses.

2/ Peers like Li Auto, which was profitable before, made losses again in 3q25 

It’s the nature of auto industry to be cyclical, due to product cycles etc.

3/ Leaders like Tesla is already making money other than selling cars

If selling EVs is such a good business, Tesla should do more, rather than “diversifying” into FSD, energy storage etc.

China’s coffee consumption growth slows

Luckin Coffee, the largest coffee chain in China, posted 1.2% company-owned same-store sales growth for 4q25, which is weak.

During earnings call, Luckin says China’s coffee market is still in a rapid growing phase – is that so?

I think there is still room, but current “coffee intensity” is already like in a mature stage.

Starbucks reward members (35mn) consume 3-5 cups per month.

Luckin members consumes close to 342mn cups per month in 2025 (4.1bn cups annually) and close to 100mn monthly transacting consumers, which translate to over 3 cups per customer per month approximately.

Why there is still room (but may be hard to penetrate)?

1) Luckin’s 450mn customer base means there could be 1.5x to 2x room in China, excluding children and elderly.

2) If Starbucks can get 16k stores in US, Luckin may get up to 4x of that which is over 60k stores in China, or 2x from current 30k stores.

3) Starbucks Reward member is an underestimation of active consumers of Starbucks, which could be like 70-90mn. 4x of that gives you 210-360mn potential which is 2-3x from current 100mn for Luckin.

Why hard to penetrate?

1) lower-hanging fruit / easy regions already have footprint.

2) China has more “layers” of consumers; thus hard to have one-size-fit-all offering. There are more competitions in China. Can’t handle price sensitive and premium customers together.