160: Chapter 160 Ma Kun's Method

At this moment, although the official Weibo for league of legends had already announced the upcoming third stage of offline events, the outside world did not have much interest in this so-called esports event.

After all, the concept of esports was too unfamiliar; whether it was league of legends players or outside capital, almost no one was optimistic about this so-called game competition.

But even so, the news that the ten-day countdown to the third stage had begun still surged to the top of the Weibo hot search list. The ranking wasn't very high, hanging around seventh or eighth place.

For an event that had been silent for a few months, this was already quite good exposure.

Just at the ten-day countdown mark, the official Weibo for league of legends released the detailed match schedule for each region. The opening match for the Great Xia region was set in Shanghai, with A-Shui's team facing off against Uzi's team.

The schedules for the other regions were also released.

Over in South Korea, the Demon King team would appear in the first round, with their opponent being a team whose win rate was second only to theirs.

The matchup information for the sixteen teams in the European, North American, and Southeast Asian regions was all released simultaneously.

As for the rules for the third stage, they were also very simple.

The sixteen teams were divided into upper and lower brackets, using a double-elimination format with a best-of-five series. Ultimately, the top three from each region would advance to the fourth stage, the Global Finals.

One must know that whether it was the first or second round, the matches were best-of-three.

But by the third round, the change to a best-of-five format would bring about more exciting matches.

The comments section under this announcement was flooded with a large number of messages within just a few hours.

However, the focus of the players' discussion was not on the match schedule at all.

"I don't know who A-Shui or Uzi are. I just want to know if the viewing event will give away skins? Can you give us a heads-up?"

"I heard the game client will also stream this. Won't that make the client laggy?"

"What about the event details? It's only ten days away, and you still haven't confirmed the rewards for the viewing event?"

"If you give away skins, I'll watch; if not, I won't. Anyway, keeping the stream open doesn't stop me from playing ranked. As long as the rewards are good, I can contribute to the viewership data for this competition."

These league of legends players didn't care about this so-called esports competition at all. At the beginning, they were just attracted by the ten-million-dollar gimmick and knew that league of legends was going to do esports.

When it came down to it, all the players were actually only concerned with one thing: would this viewing event give away skins or not?

Faced with these questions, the official Weibo for league of legends only replied in the comments section with "Stay tuned," and other than that, they released no specific information regarding the viewing event.

Meanwhile, the food delivery war continued.

Soon, another two or three days passed.

During this time, the discount intensity of the three major platforms showed no signs of stopping; instead, it became more exaggerated day by day.

Bubble tea for 1.9 yuan was no longer news. Now, the homepage of Pinxixi Flash Buy directly displayed a banner for one-cent coffee. New users got their first order for free, and existing users got 14 yuan off for orders over 15 yuan, which basically meant it was free.

Taobao Flash Buy immediately followed up with the same activities. One-cent bubble tea and food delivery even trended on hot searches. Although JD.com had higher costs than the other two, it still kept up with increased promotional activities.

Countless netizens switched back and forth between the three major platforms, ordering food delivery and bubble tea with great delight.

In order to seize market share, these three companies pushed delivery prices almost to the point of being free. Each of them poured a lot of money into it, and the more they spent, the less they showed any intention of stopping.

Furthermore, after the food delivery war attracted a large number of users, the operations teams within JD.com and Taobao simultaneously discovered something.

The proportion of new users attracted by the food delivery business who placed orders on the e-commerce platforms was quite high; it was actually able to significantly drive the growth of the e-commerce business!

The role of food delivery was far greater than they had initially estimated.

When Liu Qiang saw this set of data at an internal JD.com meeting, he barely hesitated and immediately made the decision to double the subsidy budget for JD Flash Delivery.

After the meeting, he had someone post an official Weibo for JD Flash Delivery, celebrating that JD.com's food delivery market share had officially exceeded ten percent.

From zero to a little over ten percent, JD.com had only taken less than ten days.

The other two companies still held over forty percent market share each, but Liu Qiang was already prepared for long-term subsidies.

If it were a normal new food delivery platform entering the market, it would have been impossible to capture so much market share in such a short time, but the heat of the food delivery war caused JD Flash Delivery's market share to increase quite rapidly.

However, just as Liu Qiang was preparing to go all out, internally, Taobao was somewhat unwilling to continue investing funds in the food delivery war. It wasn't for any other reason, but simply because after several previous setbacks, Taobao really had no money left.

Anli Group headquarters. Inside the conference room.

Feng Haicang stood in front of the projection screen, his finger pointing at the cumulative number on the last line. Everyone in the conference room remained silent.

"According to our estimates, this food delivery war will last for at least several more months."

"Ele.me's own capital pool simply cannot last that long."

"The previous investment in Taobao's fruit and vegetable e-commerce, the compensation expenses for the Slash activity, and the penalty fees for logistics and warehousing in various places—these things combined have already exceeded this year's budget several times over."

He turned the report to the next page, his voice lowering a few degrees.

"Unless money is allocated directly from the group level, we cannot withstand the food delivery war for too long."

"But if we touch the group's funds, the upcoming quarterly financial report will definitely have problems, and the board of directors will never agree to it."

Feng Haicang closed the folder in his hand.

"Back when Ele.me and Meituan were fighting the food delivery war, at best, they were fighting for market share in a few core cities."

"Both the coverage and intensity of the subsidies are on a completely different scale from this time."

"This time it is nationwide; all cities and all merchants are participating in the subsidies. Three platforms are burning money simultaneously, and the speed of burning is I don't know how many times faster than last time."

"We didn't anticipate this speed before."

He paused.

"And because the low-price activities pushed prices to the floor, even the newly entered JD Flash Delivery was able to snatch ten percent of the market share within a few days."

"If it weren't for this food delivery war, given JD.com's intention to focus on high-end dine-in restaurants, their food delivery prices would not have had much competitiveness originally."

Old Ma leaned back in the main seat, nodding while speaking.

"Under normal circumstances, JD Flash Delivery indeed wouldn't be able to grab much market share, because their food delivery prices are generally higher than ours."

"But because of this food delivery war, users cannot see the original price difference."

He picked up his teacup, took a sip, and put it back on the table.

"But if we continue to fight under the current situation, both our market share and that of Pinxixi Flash Buy will be slowly eroded by JD.com."

"As users keep switching back and forth using the three apps to order low-priced food, the food delivery market share of the three apps will tend to become the same."

"JD.com is undoubtedly the one benefiting the most."

"But the food delivery war has reached this point; whoever quits first will have their market share swallowed up by the other two. We have no way out."

Hearing this, the conference room fell into silence.

Taobao, after various previous setbacks, indeed did not have much usable capital on its books.

But they had been pushed into a corner and had to fight to the end.

Just at this moment, Feng Haicang broke the silence.

"We cannot lose our food delivery market share."

"Our own platform's data has already verified that the new users brought in by food delivery will lead to growth in e-commerce business. The growth rate of Taobao's business these past few days has been quite high."

"So my suggestion is."

"Take money directly from the group to invest in the food delivery war. As for the board of directors, I can only leave it to you, President Ma, to explain."

Old Ma was about to speak, but Ma Kun suddenly raised his hand to stop him.

"Actually, there is another way."

Everyone turned their heads to look at him, not understanding what he meant. Based on the current situation, there were only two choices: continue fighting or quit.

One would lose food delivery market share, and the other option would require draining the group's funds; there was almost no third option.

And Ma Kun leaned back in his chair, his voice steady.

"What if we make the food delivery war end early?"

"Completely stop the subsidies and let the three platforms return to the same starting line. For us, this would actually be the most advantageous situation."

"We don't need to use the group's money, and JD.com will slowly spit out that bit of market share they have because they lose their price advantage. As for the subsequent competition with Pinxixi Flash Buy, that will be a matter of each relying on their own abilities."

Upon hearing this, Feng Haicang was stunned.

"Stop the food delivery war? Right now the three companies are fighting tooth and nail; whoever stops first is equivalent to quitting. What way do you have to make the other two stop as well?"

On the other side, Old Ma had already guessed something. He turned his head to look at his son, his brows slightly furrowed.

"Could it be…"

"But you must understand, you cannot let the outside world know that we did this."

Ma Kun nodded.

"Of course I understand."

Subsequently, amidst the confusion of the others, Ma Kun pushed back his chair, stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window of the conference room, took out his phone, and dialed a number.