Recently, Internet enterprises have intensively released the fourth quarter and annual financial reports of 2024. In the past year, companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, JD.com, Pinduoduo, and Meituan have actively seized the opportunity of consumer recovery, launched AI technology races, and empowered various businesses to reshape, continuously optimizing the industry ecosystem. Seizing the opportunity of consumption recovery, the financial report shows that the overall operation of Internet leading enterprises has improved in the past year. In 2024, Tencent achieved a revenue of 660.257 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8%; Achieve a net profit attributable to the parent company of 194.07 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68%. JD Group's revenue was 1158.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.8%; Achieve a net profit of 41.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 71%. Baidu's revenue was 133.1 billion yuan, with a net profit attributable to Baidu's core of 23.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21%. Pinduoduo's revenue reached 393.836 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 59%; The net profit attributable to common shareholders was 112.435 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 87%. Meituan's revenue was 337.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22%; Achieve a net profit of 35.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 158%. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Alibaba's revenue was 280.154 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8%; The net profit was 46.434 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 333%. The increase in the overall revenue of Internet enterprises is mainly due to the recovery of the consumer market, enterprise cost control and optimization of operating efficiency. JD Group's Chief Financial Officer, Dan Su, stated that in the fourth quarter of 2024, JD's revenue increased by 13.4% year-on-year. Multiple categories and business segments have shown healthy growth momentum, reflecting positive macro consumption trends and JD's continuously expanding market share. Meituan's number of transaction users exceeded 770 million in 2024, and the annual active merchant count increased to 14.5 million, both reaching new highs. Meituan responds to changes in consumer trends, actively supports industry innovation, better serves more users and merchants, drives more consumption, and creates more employment opportunities, "said Meituan CEO Wang Xing. Alibaba Group's Chief Financial Officer, Xu Hong, introduced that the strong financial performance in the fourth quarter shows that Alibaba is steadily and effectively revitalizing its core business, continuing to maintain financial stability, while continuously optimizing the operational efficiency of other businesses and gradually achieving profitability. Li Mingtao, chief e-commerce expert of China International E-commerce Center, said that the growth of Internet enterprises' performance benefited from three factors: first, new market space continued to expand, and the prosperity of online consumption provided stable market growth for Internet enterprises. At the same time, the accelerated integration of online and offline also provides Internet enterprises with opportunities for business innovation and service transformation; Second, Internet enterprises continue to strengthen their core competitiveness, form differentiated and characteristic development paths, and maintain their competitive advantages in the market segments; Thirdly, major platforms have interconnected their service ecosystems, opened up cooperation in infrastructure such as payment and logistics, and expanded new user groups. Hu Qimu, deputy secretary-general of the 50 People Forum on China's Data Real Integration and chief researcher of the digital economy think-tank, said that the "combination of two new" and "dual" policies, such as the issuance of ultra long term treasury bond, interest rate and reserve ratio cuts, have achieved results, and investment and consumption have continued to recover in the past year. In addition, the deepening application of artificial intelligence technology has enhanced business innovation capabilities and consumer experience. Internet enterprises have increased their efforts to expand overseas markets and domestic sinking markets, and continued to promote ecological connectivity, bringing in new market volume. At the same time, they have reduced operating costs and improved enterprise operating efficiency by promoting internal organizational structure adjustment and business integration. AI empowers innovation and reshapes many Internet enterprises mentioned in their financial reports that the deep application of AI technology has become a key driving force for performance growth. Benefiting from AI enabled advertising platform upgrades, increased user engagement on video accounts, and growth in Changqing Games, Tencent achieved double-digit revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 2024. ”Tencent Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng stated that since 2024, Tencent's various businesses have accelerated the integration of AI technology, and the "self-developed+open source" multi model strategy has driven the growth of multiple businesses. Tencent Yuanbao, Tencent Docs, and others actively embrace the open-source big model ecosystem to provide users and customers with a better AI experience; The development momentum of WeChat search, WeChat small store and video account is strong; The basic sectors such as advertising, gaming, audio and video have also been improved and revitalized. Intelligent cloud is an important engine driving the growth of Baidu's core business, with revenue increasing by 26% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2024. "2024 is a critical year for Baidu to shift from Internet centric to AI oriented. As our full stack of AI technologies are widely recognized in the market, the growth trend of intelligent cloud is becoming stronger. ”Baidu founder, chairman and CEO Robin Lee said. In the past year, Alibaba has adhered to the "user first, AI driven" strategy, focusing on the two core businesses of e-commerce and "AI+cloud", showing an accelerated growth momentum. In the fourth quarter, Alibaba Cloud's external commercialization revenue increased by 11% year-on-year, and AI related product revenue maintained triple digit year-on-year growth for six consecutive quarters. AI technology can achieve rapid growth and value transformation, and R&D investment is key. In 2024, Meituan will continue to increase its investment in China's consumer market and technology research and development around the "retail+technology" strategy, with an investment of 21.1 billion yuan. Since its comprehensive technological transformation in 2017, JD.com has invested nearly 140 billion yuan in research and development by the end of 2024, with a focus on AI optimization of supply chain and warehousing efficiency. Li Mingtao said that Internet enterprises have all increased their investment and application in research and development of big model AI, covering intelligent search, audio and video editing, health management, intelligent customer service, intelligent supply chain and other scenarios. At the same time, they have increased the intelligent upgrading of industrial Internet. Enterprises have become the new normal through AI optimization of production plans, inventory management, remote control of industrial equipment, personalized recommendation services, etc. "In the past year, Internet enterprises have paid more attention to the efficiency improvement and model innovation brought about by artificial intelligence, more attention to the supply side coordination, and more attention to the ecological interconnection of various platforms, making the industrial chain more coordinated with market demand, directly improving the supply chain efficiency and industrial risk resistance, and making the Internet ecology more open. ”Hu Qimu said. The growth trend is expected to continue as the e-commerce industry enters the intensive cultivation stage, and all Internet enterprises will shift from incremental expansion to deep cultivation of stock to explore greater value. This means that enterprises need to pay more attention to improving user experience and strive to build a sustainable industrial ecosystem, in order to promote the industry towards higher quality development. In December 2024, Meituan launched a catering merchant assistance campaign, investing 1 billion yuan to help merchants explore innovation. Currently, 38000 high-quality merchants have received real financial support. Pinduoduo focuses on a high-quality development strategy and continues to make efforts in platform ecology and industry depth, implementing multiple measures such as "reduction, support, and governance" in platform operation, merchant management, logistics upgrading, and other aspects. "Internet enterprises have achieved ecological restoration under the guidance of platform rules, which is conducive to the sustainable development of the industry, from the low price competition at the beginning of the year, relying on the homogeneous competition of platform rules such as only refund, freight insurance, automatic price following, to the optimization of rules to protect the rights and interests of businesses. ”Li Mingtao said. In 2025, with a series of effective policies to promote consumption and the iterative upgrading of artificial intelligence technology, the industry is expected to continue its growth trend. Ma Huateng stated that Tencent has increased its AI related capital expenditures and increased its research and marketing efforts for native AI products, believing that these investments will create longer-term value. Xu Ran, CEO of JD.com, stated that with the steady recovery of consumer sentiment and JD's strong execution of strategic priorities, it will continue to unleash high-quality growth potential. But risks cannot be ignored either. "The change of tax policy in overseas markets and the improvement of compliance requirements will have a certain impact on the internationalization process of Internet enterprises. The competition in the domestic stock market is becoming increasingly fierce, the difficulty of innovation and development is increasing, and the cost of compliance operation under normal supervision is rising." Li Mingtao believes that, in terms of opportunities, domestic policy dividends such as "old for new" are released centrally, and the central government has deployed "special action to boost consumption" to support the development of new tracks such as new consumption and low altitude economy, and accelerate the innovation of consumption scenarios; Big model AI drives innovation and efficiency improvement in scenarios, and the large-scale application of generative AI in intelligent customer service, personalized recommendations, and other fields can help enterprises optimize supply chain efficiency, reduce costs, and increase efficiency. "This year, the consumption promotion policy is unprecedented, the technology breakthrough of domestic AI big model, and the Internet enterprises have better policy and tool support to improve their profitability. Enterprises should seize the policy dividends, leverage their digital capabilities, and jointly promote the prosperity of the platform's business ecosystem. ”Hu Qimu said. (New Society)