Produced by | Zidan Finance

Art Design | Qianqian

Reviewed by | Songwen

In physics, quantum entanglement is defined as: when two or more particles interact, the properties of a single particle integrate into the overall system, making it impossible to describe the properties of a single particle separately; only the properties of the entire system can be described. This phenomenon is called 'quantum entanglement.' This physical law of mutual mapping and influence is aptly used to describe the qualitative change of BitAuto after integrating into the Tencent-BitAuto ecosystem.

This entanglement continues.

On November 14, the China Automobile Dealers Summit was held in Guangzhou. At the forum, BitAuto officially announced its upgrade to 'Tencent-BitAuto Technology.' On the same day, under the joint witness of many industry leaders, the Tencent Advertising x Tencent-BitAuto Technology grand transportation industry authorization ceremony was held. This marks a significant upgrade of the Tencent-BitAuto ecosystem. Tencent-BitAuto Technology will embark on a new journey with a new identity, taking 'Tencent Advertising x Tencent-BitAuto Technology Grand Transportation Industry Authorization' as a new starting point, jointly painting a new blueprint for the grand transportation industry with Tencent Advertising. The two parties will integrate social and automotive service scenario needs to create a new automotive scenario service model. They will comprehensively connect scenarios, social networks, marketing, and data around the automotive hub, truly connecting people, vehicles, venues, and flows.

(Photo / Tencent-BitAuto Ecosystem Strategic Cooperation Upgrade Signing Ceremony)

What profound meaning lies behind the upgrade of the strategic cooperation between Tencent and Tencent-BitAuto Technology? How will the collaboration between the internet traffic giant and the leading automotive internet platform giant impact the industry?

1. A Brief History of the Development of the Automotive Internet

Every new trend is an opportunity for forward-thinking and strategic companies to seize the initiative.

Tencent, which holds an absolute dominant position in the social media field, has always had rich mobile social scenarios and service attributes. Social media represented by WeChat and video accounts is gradually evolving into an entry point for localized life services, hiding huge commercial value.

Social interaction stems from life, so it requires an extremely rich array of life service scenarios to support and facilitate the transformation of business models. As mobile social life services have become a major trend in current internet development, Tencent chose Tencent-BitAuto Technology, which covers the entire automotive industry chain, to give its social power a broader stage to showcase its capabilities.

This is not a superficial brand and business upgrade; it represents Tencent-BitAuto Technology's new strategic layout in the automotive internet industry alongside Tencent, a leap forward in comprehensively building an ecosystem in this field, and a profound insight and strategic resolve into the future development trends of the automotive internet. In Tencent's automotive industry internet landscape, Tencent-BitAuto Technology will play a key role in coordinating the 'vertical + omnichannel' traffic ecosystems.

(Photo / Shutu.cn, based on the VRF Agreement)

Looking back at the development of automotive vertical media, from the more offline-focused 1.0 era to the 2.0 era when internet giants entered the market, to the current 3.0 stage of interconnected industrial ecosystems, each change has been accompanied by the rise and reshuffling of industry giants. In the 1.0 era, platforms like BitAuto, Autohome, PCauto, and XCAR were highly vertical, forming a world dominated by small giants. However, with the rapid development of the internet, some small giants gradually fell behind, while internet giants began to enter and deploy their strategies.

In 2016, Ping An Insurance became the majority shareholder of Autohome, marking the beginning of internet giants' involvement in the automotive internet sector. Subsequently, ByteDance launched Dongchedi in 2017, officially entering the automotive internet market, intensifying industry competition. By the end of 2018, Tencent's interactions with BitAuto increased, deepening business collaboration, and in 2020, Tencent completed the privatization of BitAuto, creating a three-way split in the market.

With BitAuto's upgrade to 'Tencent-BitAuto Technology,' the automotive internet has officially entered the 3.0 stage of interconnected industrial ecosystems. The automotive vertical field will enter a new round of ecosystem competition. Relying on Tencent's vast traffic and resource advantages, Tencent-BitAuto Technology will connect the upstream and downstream of the automotive industry to build a more comprehensive ecosystem. Meanwhile, Dongchedi is also competing for market share relying on ByteDance's ecosystem, exacerbating the differentiation in the pattern of giants backing ecosystems.

For Tencent, it possesses advantages such as social advertising platforms, cloud platforms, payment platforms, and official account platforms. BitAuto has been meticulously cultivating the automotive field for many years, providing services that cover almost all scenarios related to the automotive ecosystem, demonstrating a strong understanding of professional services and automotive consumption. The interaction and integration of these two giants in different fields over the years are bound to bring about fascinating changes akin to quantum entanglement. The Tencent-BitAuto ecosystem collaboration not only gives new vitality to Tencent-BitAuto Technology but also equips it with the ability to reshape ecosystems.

2. Multi-scenario + Big Data: An Automotive Industry Ecosystem Backed by a Giant

In the mobile internet era, BitAuto and Autohome have been in fierce competition; however, with the emergence of ByteDance's 'Dongchedi,' which leverages massive traffic and the power of short videos, how to capture users' visual focus in the 'video + traffic' era once became a common weakness. Looking back from a decade later, the emergence of Tencent-BitAuto Technology represents a crucial turning point for BitAuto entering a new growth period.

The new Tencent-BitAuto Technology will be a new species encompassing four major businesses and equipped with 'eight engines.' If we borrow a piece of obscure knowledge from the constellation system, Tencent-BitAuto Technology's overall business structure resembles the 'Southern Cross' hanging in the sky, pointing to the company's future business 'new south.'

Tencent-BitAuto Technology's core businesses consist of: vertical media business - BitAuto, new media business - Chuangyi Media, AI technology business - Yihui Intelligence, and operating Tencent Advertising's grand transportation industry business platform.

These four platforms have their own focuses. BitAuto continues to delve deeper into the vertical media sector, providing more professional services. Its integration with Tencent's vast traffic pool serves as the main arena for both parties to create multi-platform data insights and create more diverse automotive ecosystem service scenarios. Chuangyi Media is responsible for new media businesses such as short videos and live streaming, leveraging WeChat video accounts to expand its influence across the entire network, thereby boosting Tencent-BitAuto Technology's reach. Yihui Intelligence is in charge of AI technology businesses, providing AI solutions based on scenarios for automotive industry clients through the capabilities of the AI Agent large model. Operating Tencent's grand transportation advertising business creates a new core position for Tencent-BitAuto Technology within the Tencent ecosystem.

(Photo / Shutu.cn, based on the VRF Agreement)

The layout of these four major business segments not only consolidates Tencent-BitAuto Technology's leading position in the automotive vertical field but also provides strong support for its expansion into broader market spaces.

The eight engines include original content upgrades, lead quality upgrades, App product upgrades, MCN account matrices, live streaming product matrices, omnichannel effect operations, automotive industry large models, and digital employee platforms. The development of these engines will further enhance Tencent-BitAuto Technology's capabilities in content creation, lead acquisition, product experience, account operation, live streaming marketing, effect evaluation, intelligent application, and other areas, providing strong momentum for its comprehensive development.

In the Tencent-BitAuto collaboration, these four major businesses and eight engines will play crucial roles. Through in-depth cooperation with Tencent, Tencent-BitAuto Technology will realize resource sharing and complementary advantages, further enhancing its competitiveness and influence in the automotive field. At the same time, it will leverage Tencent's social advantages to expand into broader market spaces and achieve diversified business development.

In the future, Tencent's big data accumulated from its social media users, across diverse media forms such as long and short texts, short videos, live streaming, and audio, can be more comprehensively integrated with Tencent-BitAuto Technology's big data through more precise user social attribute mining and analysis. This will create innovative model platforms, strengthening the diversified empowerment of social scenarios for automotive consumption.

3. Omnichannel + Vertical Domain: Leveraging Momentum for Accelerated Growth

Essentially, Tencent is a platform that connects social relationships. By leveraging Tencent-BitAuto Technology to thoroughly unlock consumer data in the automotive field, it will improve the user label data system and establish user trust. Through major events and other means, it can achieve widespread dissemination across WeChat's private, public, and commercial traffic, enabling mutual empowerment in the field of commercial value. As a channel for widespread social brand building, Tencent possesses a vast user base and landing communication channels, with unique advantages among the broad user group, which will assist in improving Tencent's landing and communication channels.

With the business upgrade, Tencent-BitAuto Technology has completed its iterative evolution from vertical to all-network content and services, providing effective information and services for future social + automotive industries. In the future, Tencent's services will cover more aspects of daily life. For Tencent, this undoubtedly improves its own industrial aspects. For Tencent-BitAuto Technology, it will leverage the other party's well-developed social media advantages to broaden industry entry points.

(Photo / Shutu.cn, based on the VRF Agreement)

In terms of advertising business integration, the cooperation between Tencent-BitAuto Technology and Tencent will achieve complementary advantages, broader ecosystem and scenario marketing, as well as innovative play methods combining social and vertical elements. This cooperation holds profound significance and value for both parties.

For Tencent, it possesses advantageous resources such as social advertising platforms, cloud platforms, payment platforms, and official account platforms. Through collaboration with Tencent-BitAuto Technology, Tencent can integrate these advantageous resources with BitAuto's professional services and deep understanding in the automotive field to jointly create more innovative and targeted automotive advertising and marketing solutions. This collaboration will not only enhance Tencent's competitiveness in the automotive advertising field but also bring it more business opportunities and revenue.

Moreover, the integration with Tencent's advertising business can leverage social advantages and big data capabilities to achieve more precise user targeting and marketing strategies. Simultaneously, Tencent-BitAuto Technology can rely on Tencent's cloud platform, payment platform, and other resources to improve its service quality and efficiency in the automotive marketing field.

In terms of broader ecosystem and scenario marketing, the cooperation between Tencent-BitAuto Technology and Tencent will fully connect online and offline systems and chains.

The two parties will focus on the automotive hub to jointly create a new automotive scenario service model. Especially in the field of live content streaming, relying on the Tencent-BitAuto ecosystem, Tencent-BitAuto Technology has created an all-around live streaming matrix, forming three main products: official live streaming, influencer live streaming, and dealer live streaming. Leveraging the full-element advantages of people, vehicles, venues, and flows within the Tencent-BitAuto ecosystem, it will jointly explore blue ocean opportunities for video accounts with automakers and dealers.

In terms of innovative play methods combining social and vertical elements, the cooperation between Tencent-BitAuto Technology and Tencent will improve the user label data system and diversify the empowerment of social scenarios for automotive consumption.

By leveraging BitAuto's in-depth insights into consumer data in the automotive field, Tencent will be able to further improve its user label data system. Based on Tencent-BitAuto's new media customer acquisition, precise targeting, intelligent screening, person-store matching, and store-end collaboration with dealers, Tencent-BitAuto Technology's sales lead structure and quality have continued to improve, with conversion rates showing a positive trend, providing automotive advertisers with more precise and effective delivery strategies.

4. Building a Diversified Business Network and Expanding Market Imagination

Tencent-BitAuto Technology's future is not limited to the single consumption scenario of automobiles. With the continuous deepening and expansion of cooperation with Tencent, Tencent-BitAuto Technology will break scenario limitations, enhance operational efficiency, realize traffic value conversion, and provide more comprehensive services for automakers and users. For both parties involved, the changes will not only impact the social and automotive consumption fields but also form a richer business format and ecosystem.

In the future, Tencent-BitAuto Technology will rely on Tencent's social advantages and big data capabilities, as well as its own professional services and deep understanding in the automotive field, to build a diversified business network. This network will cover multiple fields such as automotive brand marketing, automotive sales, automotive finance, and the automotive aftermarket, providing users with one-stop, comprehensive automotive consumption services.

The cooperation between Tencent-BitAuto Technology and Tencent will enter a new state of 'quantum entanglement.' Relying on their respective advantageous resources and innovative capabilities, the two parties will jointly create a new automotive scenario service model, realizing diversified business development and market expansion.

Focusing on a grander narrative, we can see that after experiencing planned economy, hypermarket eras, 4S shop models, and diversified channels, the emergence of Tencent-BitAuto Technology brings a new development model and possibility to this continuously iterating and upgrading industry. In the future, it is expected to bring more surprises and value to the automotive industry and consumers.