Daniel Yong Zhang - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
Management
Lingshoutong is a new business we incubate in the past two years. The purpose of Lingshoutong is to build a data-driven digital platform to enable brand partners to distribute their products to the mom-and-pop stores in low-tier cities, even in rural areas. Traditionally, most of the brands, they have a traditional distribution network, which is sort of a pyramid-like distribution network, layer-by-layer. But via Internet, via digital technology, we can narrow the gap of the layer, and also to keep all the distribution behaviors transparent to the brand. So, via this new model, we want to help the brand to distribute their products to whatever retailers they want, and they can clearly see the sell-in and the sellout. But actually, we don't want to repeat the traditional model, which is, we buy from the merchants or we buy from the brand and we turn around and sell to the pop-and-mom (sic) [mom-and-pop] (53:07) store. This is not our model. Instead, our model is, again, is a platform model. We keep everything transparent. We enable brand to distribute directly to pop-and-mom (sic) [mom-and-pop] (53:18) store on our platform. But we provide infrastructure, including the supply chain management and the logistics service, to help them to make this happen. And in terms of revenue model, I think actually, as always, we are not in hurry in monetize a young business. We see great value. Actually, we got very good feedback from the merchants, from brands, because few brands in China, they can have their own distribution network covering all the areas in China, because China is too big. For a brand to build a standalone distribution network is too expensive. So they are very happy to work with us to share the distribution platform with each other. So that's our model. But we do believe that, as long as we can create value for our merchants, for our brands, actually, finally, we can share some benefit from them. Of course, on the other side, for the pop-and-mom (sic) [mom-and-pop] (54:24) stores, actually they are traditionally doing a very – they are operating their business in a very old way. And we can provide them some digital weapons to help them to manage their store in – goods in and goods out, and to manage their customers. I think this also give them a huge advantage to digitalize their business. For digital entertainment business, I would say, as I said in my script actually, we had a good summer and we enjoy some benefits from the successful hits, drama hits, in this summer. And we will – actually, we have very strong pipeline. A few days ago, our digital media entertainment team disclosed their pipeline for the coming few quarters, and we have very strong pipeline. And we are very confident to grow our business and to enhance our leadership in this sector.