“Never invest in a business
you can’t understand.”
Warren Buffet
Since 2008, Rene Marius Köhler has invested a large share of his available liquid assets in international internet companies. This strategy has paid off to date, and there is no end in sight for the positive performance shown by these investments.
Amazon
Business model: Amazon has set itself the goal of becoming the most customer-oriented company in the world. To this end, the Group operates one of the world’s most successful platform economies, which is monetised via multidimensional business models. Amazon’s businesses focus on the retail of consumer products and an array of subscription models. The Group uses its online platforms and physical stores to sell its own merchandise, merchandise from retailers and digital content from third-party producers. This also includes its own electronic devices, such as the Kindle Reader, the Fire Tablet, Fire TVs or Echo devices (Alexa). In addition, there are programmes that enable partners to distribute their content via Amazon’s platforms. Finally, Amazon Web Services (AWS) makes the company the largest cloud computing provider in the world at the present time.
Product mix: Amazon divides its activities into three segments: North America, International and AWS. The Group continues to generate the lion’s share of its sales in North America (60.7%), with International responsible for about 28.3% of revenues. Although Amazon Web Services only contributed 11.0% to sales, it is considered the company’s most important growth market with its latest growth rate being 46.9% (North America 33.2%; International 21.3%). At the same time, a significant portion of the Group’s EBIT (AWS: USD 7,296 million vs. Group: USD 12,421 million) is generated by AWS.
Selected key facts:
- AWS is the market leader in the global cloud business (with a market share of around 17.5%)
- A tenfold increase in TAM is expected in the cloud business; CAGR for AWS 13’18’: 50.1%
- World’s number 1 in e-commerce, global market share: 13.7%
- TAM in e-commerce: USD 2,928 billion; expected CAGR through 19’23’: 17.4%
- More than 2.5 million retailers on Amazon Marketplace
- 2.1 billion visits per month
- 2019 performance: +20.1%
Alibaba
Business model: Alibaba Holding uses its investments to operate online and mobile e-commerce platforms. Its core assets consist of Taobao (digital marketplace) and Tmall (retail platform for third-party providers), but the Group also includes various other e-commerce platforms, such as Alibaba Health (pharmaceuticals and healthcare), Alibaba.com (wholesale platform for retailers) and Lazada and Aliexpress (other retail platforms). In addition to retail, the company also operates platforms in the logistics (Cainao Network), delivery services (Ele.me), restaurant and tourism (Koubei) and online travel sectors (Fliggy). Similar to Amazon, Alibaba links video content and music streaming services to its offering. Alibaba also uses ad and marketing strategies to monetise the platforms, with computing, data analytics and cloud solutions adding the finishing touches to what the Group has to offer.
Product mix: Alibaba divides its operations into four business segments: Core Commerce (85.5%), Cloud Computing (5.4%), Digital Media and Entertainment (7.8%) and Innovation Initiatives and Others (1.2%). The Group has enjoyed strong growth rates in all these segments (Group: 58.1% yoy). The most dynamic segment is the Cloud Computing business (101.0%), but growth remains strong in Core Commerce (59.9%) and Digital Media and Entertainment (32.8%). So far, however, Core Commerce is the only segment to turn a profit.
Selected key facts:
- Number 1 in Chinese e-commerce (eMarketer market share: 60%)
- The proportion of global retail e-commerce transactions originating from China increased by 41.4 percentage points to 42.4% from 2005 to 2016
- Alibaba has monopoly-like access to 755 million MAUs
- Gross merchandise value (GMV) recently grew by 50.0%
- Global number 3 in the cloud business and number 1 in Asia
- On “Singles Day” 2019, 554,000 orders per second were placed on Tmall alone, and sales totalled around USD 38.4 billion over the 24 hours of “Singles Day” 2019
- 2019 performance: +55.2%
Tencent
Business model: Tencent Holding has various equity investments in digital platforms and operates its products on a global basis. The Group is primarily active in the areas of online gaming, social media, messaging services, mobile payment, online advertising, music and video streaming and information technology. One of the core assets is Tencent’s “super app” WeChat, which has more than 1 billion users and combines the functions of an array of well-known apps (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, news feeds, payment) into a single app.
Product mix: Tencent divides its operations into the segments of Value Added Services (VAS), Online Advertising and Others (as of Q1/20, this is further subdivided into Fintech and Others). The VAS segment, where Tencent bundles together its operations related to online gaming and social network services, is responsible for the lion’s share of the Group’s sales and gross profits (56.5% and 72.3%, respectively). However, the Group’s online advertising business (ads and online marketing), as well as its fintech business (especially mobile payments), are considered the drivers of the company’s growth (CAGR ’14’18: 62.6% and 80.7%, respectively). Tencent is currently using these segments to monetise its platform and its near-monopoly on access to customers.
Selected key facts:
- World’s number 1 in online gaming
- 10% of worldwide gaming revenues can be attributed to Tencent products
- WeChat is a prime example of a successful platform economy (with the platform leveraged in various ways, including via browser, online advertising, payment, messaging and social media functions)
- Near-monopoly on access to around 1.2 billion MAUs (83% of the Chinese population)
- China’s number 1 for mobile payments
- The transaction volume of mobile payments in China is USD 790 billion (11 times higher than in the USA)
- 2019 performance: +22.5%
Business model: Facebook runs a platform economy consisting of various products for networking and displaying digital content on smartphones, computers and other end devices. Its product portfolio includes the social media platform “Facebook”, the digital community “Instagram” and the “Messenger” and “WhatsApp” messenger services. The Group also markets a hardware, software and development ecosystem that connects people virtually via “Oculus” virtual reality glasses.
Product mix: Facebook generates the majority of its sales revenue through advertising income (98.9%). To date, a marginal amount of sales revenue has come from payment services and other revenue streams (1.1%). These other revenue streams also include Oculus sales. Geographically, Facebook’s home market, the USA, accounts for the majority of its sales (43.2%), with the remainder divided between the regions of Europe (24.4%), Asia-Pacific (21.0%) and the rest of the world (8.5%).
Selected key facts:
- Facebook (#1), Messenger (#4), Instagram (#6) are some of the world’s leading social media solutions (based on number of users)
- WhatsApp is the world’s leading messaging service with 1.5 billion MAU
- The entire Group has 2.5 billion MAU (Q3/19); Instagram has around 1.0 billion MAU (Q3/19)
- Globally, 65 billion WhatsApp messages are sent every day
- CAGR for operating cash flow 14’18’: 41.4%
- Forecast for sales from digital advertising with Instagram: CAGR 18′ 21′ : 36.3%; USD 15.65 billion (source: eMarketer)
- Average revenue per user (ARPU) worldwide: USD 24.96; CAGR 09’18’: 26.2%
- 2019 performance: +51.3%