Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

”The higher-ups aren’t intervening?”

At Hang City Ali Headquarters, Ma Liyun’s expression was a mixture of joy and worry when he heard the news.

The good news was that, while there were no explicit rules, the Bank Association currently had no plans to suppress internet finance, which meant the Change Pass project was free from any major hurdles.

The worry was that the official launch of Change Pass was still at least four or five months away. If they let Yu’e Bao continue to develop unchecked, Ah Li would lose its first-mover advantage.

”Mr. Ma, Wealth Treasure has 600 million registered users. Even if we’re a step behind, I’m certain that once Change Pass is launched, it will surpass Yu’e Bao’s fund size in less than half a year.”

Lu Zhaoxi, noticing his boss’s expression, guaranteed with great confidence.

”But Wealth Treasure only has one million daily active users.”

Ma Liyun sighed softly. He finally realized a problem: Ah Li had fallen too far behind in the mobile sector.

Orange Pay had fewer than 200 million total registered users, yet its daily active users were nearly 18 million—a full eighteen times more than Wealth Treasure.

Simply put, registered users are ’how many people know you exist,’ while daily active users are ’how many people need you every day.’

In 2012, Wealth Treasure survived by relying on Taobao, Tmall Mall, and 1688. It was merely an ”ancillary tool” for e-commerce, not yet a ”daily necessity” for its users. People would only log in to the Wealth Treasure PC website or app when placing an order.

But ever since Wealth Treasure launched Kuai Jie Pay, the proportion of users logging in dropped significantly, and the daily active user data fell even lower.

The user experience and payment success rate for Taobao and Tmall Mall users improved, but Wealth Treasure’s situation became a complete mess.

”Wealth Treasure’s offline payment services are in a period of rapid growth. This past week, our daily active users increased by 4.1% week-over-week. We just need to replicate this model nationwide, and we can drive our DAU back up.”

Lu Zhaoxi answered immediately.

”WeChat is also working on a payment tool?” Ma Liyun nodded slightly, then after a moment of thought, he suddenly asked.

”Yes. Rumor is that they’ve built a completely new product on TenPay’s foundation. It seems the competition between Penguin’s internal business divisions is also pretty intense.”

Lu Zhaoxi confirmed with a nod and then elaborated.

Logically speaking, TenPay had been online for over seven years and had extensive experience in areas like handling high-concurrency transactions, reconciliation and settlement, data encryption, and risk control and anti-fraud.

And yet, WeChat insisted on developing its own payment tool, afraid that TenPay would poach its mobile traffic.

”Alright, I understand,” Ma Liyun said calmly, rubbing his temples.

After he spoke, he rubbed his throbbing temples. Compared to Ma Wenteng and Chen Yansen, his energy at forty-eight was clearly not as plentiful.

He had delegated most of Ah Li’s daily operations to people like Lu Zhaoxi and Zhang Yong, only taking responsibility for steering the group’s overall direction.

But with the advent of the mobile internet era, Ma Liyun had no choice but to be on high alert again.

Compared to 2011, the number of smartphone users in 2012 was skyrocketing. Smartphones were everywhere, and people staring down at their screens were a common sight on every street corner.

Yet the proportion of mobile users on Taobao, Tmall Mall, and Wealth Treasure was not even 10%.

At this moment, Ma Liyun sat in his office, looking down through the glass window at the entire Ali Headquarters. The sun was shining brightly outside, but a chill grew in his heart.

’Ah Li must catch the wave of the mobile internet!’

...

...

「Meanwhile.」

「Yanjing, Qian Du Network Headquarters.」

Li Yanhong opened the business report for DiDi Dache. In the column for sequential order growth, the figure ”-6.1%” was glaringly conspicuous.

’DiDi Dache’s order volume can still fall by 6.1% even when we’re subsidizing three rides a day?’

’How did Xiang Hailong manage that?’

Li Yanhong snorted coldly, almost laughing out of sheer anger.

”Fast Taxi launched ’Ride and Get Yu’e Bao Trial Funds’ and a top-up card promotion. DiDi Dache’s number of fulfilled orders was impacted by this...”

Reading the reasons Xiang Hailong had summarized, Li Yanhong’s brow furrowed, and he cursed inwardly. ’So? Didn’t Qian Du Drive give away free storage? Didn’t Qian Du Library give away monthly memberships?’

As he thought of this, the idea of replacing DiDi Dache’s CEO immediately surfaced in Li Yanhong’s mind.

’But who would replace him?’

’Outsiders can’t be trusted, and our own people are unreliable!’

He could see it clearly now. While Xiang Hailong was excellent at business negotiations and presentations, he was clearly no man of action. His ability to execute strategy was weak.

’In his hands, DiDi Dache would likely struggle to achieve anything significant.’

’What is Cheng Wei busy with these days?’

Somehow, Cheng Wei’s name had unexpectedly flashed through his mind.

Li Yanhong began to mull it over. If he invited Cheng Wei back to be COO and had Wang Jin manage the R&D department—combining Ah Li’s market expansion abilities with Qian Du’s technological know-how—perhaps DiDi still had a fighting chance.

After more than ten days of a fierce subsidy war, DiDi Dache had burned through 400 million in funds, yet its market share hadn’t budged an inch.

Only then did Li Yanhong have a sudden realization: Xiang Hailong was absolutely not the best choice for CEO of DiDi Dache.

But he couldn’t bring himself to call Cheng Wei; he couldn’t swallow his pride.

Although the two of them hadn’t had a complete falling out, it was, after all, he who had kicked Cheng Wei out of the CEO position at DiDi Dache. Asking the man to come back now as COO—wasn’t that a blatant insult?

After agonizing over it for a long while, Li Yanhong still couldn’t make up his mind. Finally, with a sigh, he called for Liang Zhixiang.

”Boss, you were looking for me?”

Three minutes later, Liang Zhixiang knocked and entered.

”Are you still in touch with Cheng Wei?” Li Yanhong couldn’t bring himself to be direct, so he beat around the bush.

”No,” Liang Zhixiang answered truthfully.

’He was the Vice President of Qian Du Network; what was there to talk about with a founder who’d been kicked out?’

”Have you seen DiDi Dache’s weekly business report?” Li Yanhong asked.