“互聯網女皇”報告凸顯美中網絡巨頭主導地位

A new phase of global competition has broken out between a handful of massively wealthy US and Chinese internet companies — with consumers and businesses the beneficiaries of their services.

少數幾家財力雄厚的美國和中國互聯網公司之間爆發了一場新階段的全球競爭——消費者和企業都是他們所提供服務的受益者。

That, at least, is the view of Mary Meeker, the former US internet analyst who is still most closely associated with the dotcom boom of the 1990s. Since leaving Wall Street for Silicon Valley seven years ago to join venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, her annual analysis — in more than 200 slides — has become a widely used reference on the global state of the internet.

至少，這是瑪麗·米克爾(Mary Meeker)的觀點；她曾經是一名互聯網分析師，仍被視爲與上世紀90年代的網絡股泡沫最爲密切相關。自7年前離開華爾街轉投硅谷風險投資公司凱鵬華盈(Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)以來，她的年度分析（200多頁幻燈片）已成爲有關全球互聯網狀態的廣泛使用的參考。

After what she calls “an epic half-decade” of expansion and stock market appreciation, Apple, Microsoft,Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook have emerged as the world’s five most valuable companies. Two Chinese internet companies —Alibaba and Tencent— have also broken into the top 10.

在經歷了她所稱的“史詩般的五年”擴張和股市增值之後，蘋果(Apple)、微軟(Microsoft)、Alphabet、亞馬遜(Amazon)和Facebook已崛起爲全球市值最高的五家公司。兩家中國互聯網公司——阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和騰訊(Tencent)——也闖入前10名。

The rise of this handful of internet giants has stirred worries among regulators and other industries that have not yet felt the touch of digital disruption. But, according to Ms Meeker, the concerns fail to take into account the rivalry that has engulfed the internet companies as they move out of their initial markets and on to each other’s turf.

這幾家互聯網巨頭的崛起，已經引發了監管機構以及尚未感受到數字化顛覆影響的其他行業的擔憂。但米克爾表示，這些擔憂並未考慮到的一點是：隨着這些互聯網公司跨出自己最初的市場，擠入彼此的地盤，它們深陷相互間的競爭。

“People don’t spend enough time looking at how intense the competition is,” she says in an interview with the Financial Times. “The bet here is: we can’t stop progress. Are we better off or worse off? So far, the data implies we are better off.”

“人們沒有花足夠時間去關注這種競爭的激烈程度，”她在接受英國《金融時報》採訪時表示，“我敢打賭：我們無法阻止進步。我們的境況更好了還是更遭了？到目前爲止，數據顯示我們的境況更好了。”

The picture of growing global dominance emerges from Ms Meeker’s latest slideshow, published yesterday. Referring to how online activity is reshaping markets spanning retail to transport, she says: “The pace and breadth of global change is happening at a pace that is faster than I would have anticipated.”

米克爾昨日發表的最新幻燈片顯示了這些公司日益增強的全球主導地位。在談到線上活動如何重塑從零售業到運輸業的各類市場時，她表示：“全球變革的步伐和廣度都超出我的預期。”

In the US, for instance, growth in online advertising and ecommerce has accelerated again since earlier this decade, with advertising revenues up 22 per cent last year and ecommerce up 15 per cent. Global online ad spending, at nearly $200bn, is forecast to exceed TV advertising for the first time this year.

例如，在美國，在線廣告和電子商務的增長自本10年早些時候以來已再次加速，去年廣告收入增長了22%，電子商務增長了15%。預計全球在線廣告支出（近2000億美元）今年將首次超過電視廣告。

The disruption is deeper than the numbers suggest. In ecommerce, the adoption of technologies such as geolocation and machine learning are “changing retail at what is probably an accelerating rate”. And the collection of data on a mass scale is about to have a profound impact. Ms Meeker’s tip for a sector on the cusp of upheaval: healthcare, where regulations and barriers to sharing data have slowed innovation, but which she now says is ripe for change.

這種顛覆比這些數字所顯示的要深刻得多。在電商領域，諸如地理定位、機器學習等技術的採用正在“加速改變零售業”。同時大規模數據收集即將產生深遠影響。米克爾認爲，站在劇變門檻上的一個行業是醫療保健——監管和共享數據面對的障礙減慢了創新的步伐，但她稱，這一領域變革的時機現在已經成熟。

Despite Ms Meeker’s optimism about competition, however, the picture that emerges from her global snapshot also shows the effects of increasingly heavy concentrations in some digital markets.

雖然米克爾對競爭感到樂觀，但從她的全球快照也可以看出某些數字市場越來越高度集中的後果。

Google and Facebook, for instance, accounted for 85 per cent of online advertising in the US last year, up from 76 per cent a year before. In the media world, Ms Meeker estimates that Spotify has already secured 20 per cent of global music revenues, and Netflix 30 per cent of home entertainment revenue in the US. These digital-first companies reflect a trend towards increasingly personalised services, she says: “It speaks to the power of the algorithms and the data. It improves pricing for users and consumer satisfaction.”

例如，谷歌和Facebook去年佔了美國在線廣告的85%，高於一年前的76%。在媒體界，米克爾估計Spotify已佔到全球音樂收入的20%，Netflix佔美國家庭娛樂收入的30%。這些數字服務提供商反映了越來越偏向個人化服務的趨勢。她說：“這說明算法和數據的力量。它改善了用戶面對的定價和消費者滿意度。”

Future competition between the digital giants is likely to take place on the global stage. The internet markets in China and India have each reached a scale where they are poised to have a strong beneficial impact on their economies, Ms Meeker says. Their mobile payment infrastructures, for instance, put both countries “in an enviable position relative to the rest of the world”. And thanks to its national identity scheme, Aadhaar, and the spread of low-cost bandwidth, India is on the brink of an explosion of digital services.

數字巨頭之間的未來競爭可能會發生在全球舞臺上。米克爾說，中國和印度的互聯網市場均已達到一個規模，將對它們的經濟產生強大的有益影響。例如，中印的移動支付基礎設施讓兩國“相較其他國家處於令人羨慕的地位”。而印度得益於其國民身份識別計劃Aadhaar以及低成本帶寬的普及，正處於數字服務爆炸的邊緣。

With so much to play for, that has already made India “a global priority” between US and Chinese companies. American companies such as Amazon are approaching new markets such as this more aggressively, she says.

面對如此大的潛力，美國和中國企業都把印度視爲“一個全球重點”。她說，亞馬遜等美國企業正在更加積極地看待這類新市場。

But even if competition becomes increasingly fierce between the digital giants, will it create a new global oligopoly? After more than two decades watching the rise of internet leaders, Ms Meeker says she is “highly confident” new categories of activity will emerge, with new groups set to dominate them — much as Uber and Didi Chuxing have come to dominate ride hailing.

但是，即使這些數字巨頭間的競爭變得越來越激烈，這種競爭會造就一個新的全球寡頭壟斷局面嗎？經過20多年對互聯網領軍者崛起的觀察，米克爾表示，她“非常有信心”新的業務類別將應運而生，同時新的集團將主導它們，就像優步(Uber)和滴滴出行(Didi Chuxing)將主導叫車市場一樣。