托福雙語(yǔ)閱讀素材：中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭燃起戰(zhàn)火

想要提高托福閱讀能力，我們一定要在日常生活中有意識(shí)地增加英語(yǔ)閱讀量，提升語(yǔ)感和熟練度，這其中比較常用也比較方便地一個(gè)方式就是利用各類英文報(bào)刊雜志文章進(jìn)行精讀與泛讀練習(xí)。下面我們來(lái)看一篇經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人文章：中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭燃起戰(zhàn)火。

China’s internet giants

Three kingdoms, two empires

China’s internet giants battle at home and abroad

中國(guó)的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭

三國(guó)鼎立，兩帝稱雄

中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭在國(guó)內(nèi)外燃起戰(zhàn)火

THERE was a time, not that long ago, when China’s big internet companies were dismissed by investors in Silicon Valley as marginal firms with a tendency to copy Western products. Not any more. Today they are monsters with increasingly hefty international ambitions.

就在不久前，硅谷的投資者還根本不把中國(guó)的大型互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司放在眼里，認(rèn)為它們不過(guò)是些邊緣企業(yè)，往往都是照搬西方的產(chǎn)品。時(shí)過(guò)境遷，今天這些中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司已經(jīng)長(zhǎng)成了猛獸，在國(guó)際市場(chǎng)上的野心不斷膨脹。

Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce group, handles more transactions each year than do eBay and Amazon combined. Jack Ma, its chairman, pledges to serve 2bn consumers around the world within 20 years. Tencent, which specialises in online games and social media, is now the world’s tenth most valuable public firm, worth some $275bn. Pony Ma (no relation), its chairman, wants China to “preside over the global tech revolution of the future”. But as the two firms become global forces, the third member of China’s “BAT” trio of internet giants, Baidu, an online-search firm that came to dominate the mainland market after Google left the country to avoid censorship, is lagging behind.

中國(guó)最大的電商集團(tuán)阿里巴巴每年處理的交易量超過(guò)eBay和亞馬遜的總和，董事局主席馬云承諾要在20年內(nèi)為全球20億消費(fèi)者提供服務(wù)。專注網(wǎng)絡(luò)游戲和社交媒體的騰訊公司現(xiàn)在是世界第十大最有價(jià)值的上市公司，市值約2750億美元。董事長(zhǎng)馬化騰(和馬云不是親戚)希望中國(guó)能“領(lǐng)導(dǎo)未來(lái)的全球科技革命”。中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)三巨頭“BAT”中的第三位是百度。谷歌為避免審查制度退出中國(guó)后，百度便稱霸中國(guó)大陸的在線搜索市場(chǎng)。另外兩大巨頭已成為國(guó)際大公司，百度卻落在人后。

All three firms differ from their Western peers in important ways. First, Western companies usually prefer to focus on a few core areas, whereas Chinese internet firms typically try to do everything from cloud computing to digital payments. When this works, as with Tencent’s wildly successful app, WeChat, the results can be impressive.

這三家公司與西方同行在幾個(gè)重要方面有所不同。首先，西方公司通常會(huì)聚焦幾個(gè)核心領(lǐng)域，而中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司一般涉獵廣泛，從云計(jì)算到數(shù)字支付無(wú)不嘗試。這樣的嘗試一旦成功，結(jié)果便會(huì)非?？捎^，騰訊大獲成功的應(yīng)用微信即是如此。

Second, with the exception of political censorship, the internet sector in China is lightly regulated. Facebook, Apple and Google, in contrast, face increasing scrutiny. Chinese internet firms can achieve market domination of a sort that would attract close attention in other markets.

第二，拋開(kāi)要接受政治審查這一點(diǎn)，中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)行業(yè)的監(jiān)管較為寬松;而Facebook、蘋(píng)果和谷歌則面臨日益嚴(yán)格的審視。以中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)企業(yè)能達(dá)到的市場(chǎng)支配地位，換在其他市場(chǎng)，會(huì)受到監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)的密切關(guān)注。

The third difference is that they can succeed on a rapid and massive scale because the state-dominated economy is so inefficient. Often there is not even a physical infrastructure to leapfrog—so-called third-tier cities, for example, often lack big retail centres. Nationwide there is one shopping mall per 1.2m people.

第三個(gè)區(qū)別是，由于國(guó)家主導(dǎo)的經(jīng)濟(jì)效率低下，中國(guó)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)企業(yè)可以快速取得大規(guī)模成功。企業(yè)發(fā)展過(guò)程中通常甚至都沒(méi)有擋路的實(shí)體機(jī)構(gòu)，比如在所謂的三線城市，往往都缺少大型零售中心。中國(guó)每120萬(wàn)人才有一個(gè)大型購(gòu)物中心。

A huge home market has not stopped the trio from fighting bloody turf wars among each other. The outcome to this battle is rapidly becoming clear. Tencent and Alibaba are surging ahead; a series of own goals has left Baidu far behind. The common jibe about Baidu among local experts is that it is becoming the Yahoo of China, a once-dominant search giant that sank owing to a lack of innovation and a series of management blunders.

國(guó)內(nèi)市場(chǎng)如此巨大，卻仍未能阻止這三巨頭相互廝殺搶奪地盤(pán)。這場(chǎng)戰(zhàn)斗的結(jié)果正迅速明朗。騰訊和阿里巴巴遙遙領(lǐng)先，百度則因自己一連串的烏龍球而遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)落后。國(guó)內(nèi)專家最常用來(lái)挖苦百度的一個(gè)說(shuō)法就是它正在變成中國(guó)的雅虎。雅虎一度是占據(jù)市場(chǎng)主導(dǎo)地位的搜索巨頭，卻因缺乏創(chuàng)新和一系列管理失誤而沉淪。

Its revenue growth fell to 6.3% in 2016, down from 35% in 2015 and 54% in 2014. The firm gets some nine-tenths of its revenues from online ads, but this income is plunging as marketers redirect spending from search ads on Baidu to social-media networks like WeChat and mobile-commerce platforms run by Alibaba. Meanwhile, Baidu is burning cash trying to keep its various big bets on artificial intelligence (AI), online video, virtual and augmented-reality technologies, and “online to offline” (O2O) services going. One of China’s most respected business consultants is pessimistic about its future: “There is very little chance they’ll be relevant in five years.”

百度的收入增長(zhǎng)率在2016年下降至6.3%，遠(yuǎn)低于2015年的35%和2014年的54%。公司收入約九成都來(lái)自在線廣告，但由于商家把花在百度搜索廣告的錢(qián)轉(zhuǎn)投至微信這樣的社交媒體網(wǎng)絡(luò)以及阿里巴巴運(yùn)營(yíng)的移動(dòng)商務(wù)平臺(tái)，百度的收入大幅下滑。同時(shí)，百度還在燒錢(qián)維系它的幾個(gè)大賭注：人工智能(AI)、在線視頻、虛擬和增強(qiáng)現(xiàn)實(shí)技術(shù)，以及“線上到線下”(O2O)服務(wù)。中國(guó)最受尊敬的商業(yè)顧問(wèn)之一對(duì)百度的未來(lái)持悲觀態(tài)度：“五年以后很可能就沒(méi)百度什么事了。”

Of the other two giants, Tencent is probably the most fearsome. It already has higher revenues and profits than Alibaba (see chart). Its value is set to climb as it ramps up advertising on WeChat (provided that does not provoke a backlash from users). Its main weapon against Alibaba is its stake in JD.com, the country’s second-biggest e-commerce firm, led by Richard Liu, one of China’s most aggressive and successful serial entrepreneurs.

至于其他兩個(gè)巨頭，騰訊可能最令人生畏，其收入和利潤(rùn)都已超過(guò)阿里巴巴(見(jiàn)圖表)。隨著騰訊不斷增加微信上的廣告投放(只要不引起用戶的反對(duì))，其價(jià)值勢(shì)必節(jié)節(jié)攀升。騰訊對(duì)付阿里巴巴的主要武器是其在京東的股份。京東是中國(guó)第二大電子商務(wù)公司，領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人劉強(qiáng)東是中國(guó)最富進(jìn)取心也是最成功的連續(xù)創(chuàng)業(yè)家之一。

https://JD.com has adopted an expensive “asset-heavy” business model akin to Amazon’s in America. Thus far, its vast investments in warehouses, logistics and couriers have not come anywhere near toppling Alibaba. But last year the company saw its revenues rise to $37.5bn, up from $28bn the previous year. Its share of China’s business-to-consumer market rose to 25% in 2016, up from 18% at the end of 2014. If Mr Liu’s investments in infrastructure start to pay off, much of Alibaba’s future domestic growth could be at risk.

京東采取了成本很高的“重資產(chǎn)”商業(yè)模式，與美國(guó)的亞馬遜類似。到目前為止，京東在倉(cāng)儲(chǔ)、物流和快遞方面的龐大投資還遠(yuǎn)不足以掀翻阿里巴巴。但在去年，京東的收入已從前年的280億美元升至375億美元。它在中國(guó)B2C市場(chǎng)的份額在2014年底為18%，2016年攀升至25%。如果劉強(qiáng)東對(duì)基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施的投資開(kāi)始收效，阿里巴巴未來(lái)國(guó)內(nèi)增長(zhǎng)的大頭可能面臨風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。

That threat may explain why Mr Ma is not content with Alibaba’s overall 70% share of the local e-commerce market. In 2016 it spent $1bn to win control of Lazada, South-East Asia’s biggest e-commerce firm. In March Lazada launched a new service for Singaporeans directly to shop on Taobao, one of Alibaba’s two domestic e-commerce platforms (the other is Tmall).

上述威脅也許可以解釋為何阿里巴巴在國(guó)內(nèi)電子商務(wù)市場(chǎng)的份額雖已高達(dá)70%，但馬云并不滿足。2016年，阿里巴巴斥資10億美元控股東南亞最大的電子商務(wù)公司Lazada。3月，Lazada推出了方便新加坡人直接上淘寶購(gòu)物的新服務(wù)(淘寶是阿里巴巴兩個(gè)國(guó)內(nèi)電子商務(wù)平臺(tái)之一，另一個(gè)是天貓)。

Mr Ma last year persuaded the G20 summit of leading countries to endorse his proposal for an “electronic world trade platform” (eWTP), to make it easier for small businesses to trade across borders. In March Alibaba launched a “digital free-trade zone” as part of the initiative, in Malaysia. This public-private partnership, which involves simplifying both logistics and payments, will help small merchants.

去年，為了便于小企業(yè)開(kāi)展跨境貿(mào)易，馬云說(shuō)服二十國(guó)集團(tuán)首腦會(huì)議接受了他提出的“電子世界貿(mào)易平臺(tái)”(eWTP)。3月，阿里巴巴在馬來(lái)西亞推出了eWTP的一個(gè)項(xiàng)目“數(shù)字自由貿(mào)易區(qū)”，通過(guò)公私合作來(lái)簡(jiǎn)化物流和支付，為小商戶助力。

Mr Ma’s chief weapon for going global, however, is Ant Financial, which was spun out of Alibaba before the latter’s $25bn flotation in 2014 in New York. In China the unit offers services ranging from online banking to investment products; it even runs the mainland’s first proper consumer credit-scoring agency, Sesame Credit, which uses big data to work out the creditworthiness of punters. Ant already has more than 450m customers in China and is going overseas with gusto.

然而，馬云邁向世界的主要武器是螞蟻金服。2014年阿里巴巴在紐約上市，融資250億美元，螞蟻金服就是在這之前從集團(tuán)剝離的。在中國(guó)，螞蟻金服提供從網(wǎng)上銀行到投資產(chǎn)品等各種服務(wù)。它甚至還管理著中國(guó)大陸第一個(gè)嚴(yán)格意義上的消費(fèi)者信用評(píng)分機(jī)構(gòu)——芝麻信用，利用大數(shù)據(jù)來(lái)確定客戶的信用狀況。螞蟻金服在中國(guó)已擁有超過(guò)4.5億客戶，且正熱情高漲地走向海外市場(chǎng)。

It has investments in local online-payments firms in Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea. In America Ant is in a frenzied bidding and lobbying war with Euronet, an American rival, to buy MoneyGram International, a money-transfer firm. On April 17th Ant raised its initial offer for MoneyGram by over a third to $1.2bn, topping Euronet’s bid.

螞蟻金服投資了泰國(guó)、菲律賓、新加坡和韓國(guó)的在線支付公司。在美國(guó)，為收購(gòu)匯款服務(wù)供應(yīng)商速匯金(MoneyGram International)，螞蟻正與美國(guó)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手Euronet展開(kāi)一場(chǎng)瘋狂的收購(gòu)和游說(shuō)戰(zhàn)。 4月17日，螞蟻把對(duì)速匯金的首次報(bào)價(jià)提高了超過(guò)三分之一，達(dá)12億美元，高出了Euronet的報(bào)價(jià)。

Tencent is also making bold acquisitions abroad. A consortium that it led spent $8.6bn to acquire Finland’s Supercell last year, a deal that turned Tencent into the world’s biggest purveyor of online games. Together with Taiwan’s Foxconn, a contract-manufacturing giant, the firm invested $175m last year into Hike Messenger, an Indian messaging app akin to America’s WhatsApp. It was also an early investor in America’s Snapchat, another popular messaging app, whose parent company Snap went public in March.

騰訊也在國(guó)外展開(kāi)大膽收購(gòu)。去年，騰訊領(lǐng)銜的財(cái)團(tuán)斥資86億美元收購(gòu)了芬蘭的Supercell，令騰訊成為世界最大的在線游戲公司。去年騰訊還聯(lián)合臺(tái)灣代工巨頭富士康共同對(duì)印度的即時(shí)消息應(yīng)用Hike Messenger(類似美國(guó)的WhatsApp)投資1.75億美元。騰訊也是另一個(gè)流行的即時(shí)消息應(yīng)用——美國(guó)的Snapchat——的早期投資者，Snapchat的母公司Snap于3月上市。

One reason for these purchases is that Tencent’s earlier efforts to promote WeChat abroad (including a splashy advertising campaign in Europe featuring Lionel Messi, a footballer) flopped. Established social networks such as Facebook and WhatsApp proved too entrenched to dislodge. They also did some copying of their own: once they adopted some of WeChat’s innovations, Western consumers had little reason to switch to the Chinese network.

這一系列投資動(dòng)作有一個(gè)原因：騰訊早些時(shí)候在國(guó)外推廣微信的努力告敗(包括花大價(jià)錢(qián)在歐洲進(jìn)行的一次廣告宣傳活動(dòng)，當(dāng)時(shí)還請(qǐng)了足球運(yùn)動(dòng)員梅西代言)。事實(shí)證明Facebook和WhatsApp這樣成熟的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)的地位已牢不可破。而且那些社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)自己也照搬了微信的一些做法，而它們一旦采用了微信的創(chuàng)新，西方消費(fèi)者就更沒(méi)什么理由改用中國(guó)的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)了。

Such investments have been in Tencent’s core areas, away from turf occupied by Alibaba and Baidu. Sometimes, the trio end up co-operating, if not by design. All three BAT firms are backers of Didi Chuxing, a ride-hailing firm with global pretensions of its own. But in other ways their domestic war is spilling into foreign markets.

騰訊的這些投資一直是在其核心領(lǐng)域，遠(yuǎn)離阿里巴巴和百度的地盤(pán)。有時(shí)候，雖然不是有意為之，三巨頭倒也成為了合作者。BAT都投資了本身也有意打入國(guó)際市場(chǎng)的網(wǎng)約車公司滴滴出行。但在其他方面，三巨頭在國(guó)內(nèi)的戰(zhàn)火正在向國(guó)外市場(chǎng)蔓延。

India is one such battleground. In April, together with eBay and Microsoft, Tencent invested $1.4bn into Flipkart, a leading Indian online retailer. Alibaba and Ant together are reported to have invested nearly $900m in Paytm, India’s top online-payments firm; in February, Paytm launched an e-commerce portal akin to Alibaba’s Tmall to take on Flipkart and Amazon in India.

印度便是它們?cè)诤Ｍ獾囊粋€(gè)戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)。4月，騰訊與eBay和微軟合作，向印度領(lǐng)先的網(wǎng)絡(luò)零售商Flipkart投資14億美元。據(jù)報(bào)道，阿里巴巴和螞蟻金服已對(duì)印度最大的在線支付公司Paytm投資近9億美元。2月，Paytm在印度推出了一個(gè)類似阿里巴巴天貓的電商門(mén)戶，與Flipkart和亞馬遜印度抗衡。

Elsewhere, Tencent unveiled a service in March that will allow firms in Europe to use WeChat to sell on the mainland. This will let them sell directly into China, avoiding red tape. Tencent also recently invested $1.8bn in America’s Tesla, a pioneer in electric and autonomous vehicles. That is a particular challenge to Baidu, which is betting its future on machine learning and AI.

在其他方面，騰訊于3月推出了一項(xiàng)服務(wù)，將允許歐洲的公司通過(guò)微信在大陸展開(kāi)銷售。這樣這些公司便可直接進(jìn)入中國(guó)，省去了繁瑣的審批程序。騰訊最近還向電動(dòng)及自動(dòng)駕駛汽車先行者美國(guó)特斯拉投資18億美元。這對(duì)把自身未來(lái)賭在機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)和AI上的百度來(lái)說(shuō)尤其是個(gè)挑戰(zhàn)。

Baidu’s push abroad is mainly a way to get access to talent in these fields. The firm has just started its first recruiting campaign at top American universities, including Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It has a respected AI laboratory in Silicon Valley, despite the recent departure of Andrew Ng, an AI expert. But Baidu does not have the same firepower as Alibaba and Tencent. It tried but has failed to conquer foreign markets such as Japan with its search engine. In April it opened up its self-driving technology to rivals, as Tesla did in 2014, but it has a long way to go before it makes an impact in autonomous driving.

百度推進(jìn)海外市場(chǎng)主要是為了獲得這些領(lǐng)域的人才。最近，百度啟動(dòng)了在斯坦福大學(xué)和麻省理工學(xué)院等美國(guó)頂尖大學(xué)的首次招聘活動(dòng)。百度在硅谷有一間頗有聲望的AI實(shí)驗(yàn)室，盡管AI專家吳恩達(dá)最近已離職。不過(guò)百度并沒(méi)有阿里巴巴和騰訊那樣雄厚的資金實(shí)力。它的搜索引擎曾嘗試征服日本等國(guó)外市場(chǎng)，但未能得手。4月，百度向?qū)κ珠_(kāi)放了自己的無(wú)人駕駛技術(shù)，和特斯拉在2014年的做法一樣。但要在這一領(lǐng)域產(chǎn)生影響力，百度還有很長(zhǎng)的路要走。

Grandiose BAT statements about global aims should be taken with a pinch of salt. It would be an error to neglect the profitable domestic market. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, reckons that China’s online retail market will more than double in size by 2020, to $1.7trn. As Duncan Clark, author of a recent book on Alibaba, points out, whatever headlines Mr Ma and other internet bosses make with their overseas ventures, “it takes a lot to get away from the sheer gravity of China.” But at home and abroad, one thing is clear: China’s internet titans cannot be ignored.

BAT有關(guān)全球目標(biāo)的豪言壯語(yǔ)不能全信。忽視有利可圖的國(guó)內(nèi)市場(chǎng)無(wú)異于犯錯(cuò)。投資銀行高盛認(rèn)為，到2020年，中國(guó)的在線零售市場(chǎng)規(guī)模將至少翻一番，達(dá)到1.7萬(wàn)億美元。正如鄧肯·克拉克(Duncan Clark)最近在他關(guān)于阿里巴巴的書(shū)中指出的那樣，不管馬云和其他互聯(lián)網(wǎng)大佬在海外拓展過(guò)程中做出了什么引人矚目的舉動(dòng)，“要脫離中國(guó)市場(chǎng)的強(qiáng)大引力可沒(méi)那么容易。”但不論是在國(guó)內(nèi)還是國(guó)外，有一點(diǎn)很明確：中國(guó)的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭不容忽視。