The mobile payment market has never witnessed competition as fierce as it does today.

To capture such a dynamic, we must delve into the era when mobile internet giants fiercely contended. Back then, players like Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, and JD.com viewed payment as the "ultimate battleground of the internet."

The mobile payment market's high valuation stems partly from its role as the final frontier for capturing user traffic.

Precisely because of its pivotal position, the mobile payment market's competition offers a window into the broader industry's dynamics during heated phases.

As the heyday of the internet industry wanes and stock market competition intensifies, mobile payment, as the last bastion for user acquisition, assumes new functions and meanings.

In the stock era, the mobile payment market's competition will directly shape players' standing.

While the surface of the mobile payment market appears calm, a profound transformation is underway.

Formerly fierce rivals Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com have embarked on new battles, joined by newcomers like Meituan, Douyin, and Pinduoduo.

As competition in the mobile payment market intensifies, Alipay, once atop the throne, is the first to feel an unprecedented chill.

Whether it's adding diverse functions, prioritizing content through live streaming and short videos, or integrating related businesses, Alipay is no longer the same.

If the old Alipay represented supremacy, the current Alipay embodies a state of "being caught in a dilemma".

I

Ultimately, it all boils down to traffic.

On the surface, the current traffic landscape seems stable, with Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com leading the pack.

However, Pinduoduo's rise and the emergence of Douyin and Kuaishou highlight that this seemingly stable landscape is far from monolithic, signaling a profound transformation.

This demonstrates that the seemingly stable traffic pattern is not monolithic and that a profound reshuffle is underway.

To analyze the current traffic landscape, we see established players like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com, and newcomers like Douyin, Kuaishou, Pinduoduo, and Meituan, dividing the market.

As the traffic market transitions from incremental to stock era, finding new incremental traffic becomes increasingly challenging.

Amidst this backdrop, both established and new players must carve out shares from the existing traffic pie and redivide the market through competition to identify new growth opportunities and make a difference in the stock era.

Thus, a stock-era traffic war has commenced.

Alipay naturally felt the chill of this stock competition first.

Hence, we observe Alipay continuously expanding its platform and reaching into various scenarios and businesses.

Ultimately, Alipay's actions stem from its awareness of the challenges posed by the division of traffic in the stock era.

Whether it's expanding functions, building content systems, or exploring new payment methods, Alipay exudes a strong sense of traffic anxiety.

As Alipay becomes more aggressive in acquiring traffic, we can expect to see more novel actions emerge.

II

Alipay's prominent position in the mobile payment market is partly due to Alibaba's business ecosystem consistently funneling traffic to it.

Whether within Alibaba's business system or its investment portfolio, Alipay serves as the ultimate payment gateway.

Thus, Alipay's past success can be attributed to Alibaba's expanding business and investment territories, along with the growth dividends from increasing increments.

However, as Alibaba's e-commerce business faces growth pressures, particularly when its core business encounters difficulties, its model of relying solely on Alibaba's business for support begins to encounter challenges.

Alipay's growth has also been significantly impacted by Alibaba's sluggish business performance.

During this period, Alibaba's attempts at overseas payment expansion and social circle breaking have largely failed.

The contraction of Alibaba's business is the primary reason Alipay's traffic has encountered difficulties.

Simultaneously, the liquidation of Alibaba's non-core businesses and the resulting traffic loss has deprived Alipay of a significant external traffic source.

Whether it's the sale of Sun Art Retail or Intime Department Store, Alibaba is divesting non-core assets, which are also significant traffic sources for Alipay.

As Alibaba's traffic growth enters a bottleneck or regression period, Alipay's traffic faces significant challenges.

The once-dominant old Alipay is increasingly encountering embarrassments.

III

When Alibaba's internal ecosystem, where Alipay resides, can no longer support and deliver traffic, Alipay's traffic growth feels the pressure.

While these pressures originate internally, Alipay can mitigate them by replacing old elements with new ones.

While Alibaba's internal challenges negatively impact Alipay, external competitors are also encroaching on its traditional territory.

Players like Pinduoduo, JD.com, Douyin, and Meituan, and their new payment methods, are dividing Alipay's traffic, continuously squeezing its market space.

The division of Alipay's traffic by these players has placed its development in a difficult situation.

Different external players continue to build their payment systems and divide Alipay's traffic, increasing pressure on Alipay's development.

Whether through traditional subsidy-based competition or new models centered on payment method evolution, these players target Alipay's weaknesses, intensifying growth pressures.

Alipay's embrace of new content forms like short videos and live streaming, and its promotion of tap-to-pay, are attempts to counter external competitive pressures.

While these strategies alleviate external pressures to some extent, as Alipay adds more functions and expands its platform, it risks hindering its development rather than promoting it, leading to a chaotic and confused state.

Alipay remains focused on traffic for traffic's sake, failing to address the fundamental underlying competitive logic.

While a traffic-driven model can achieve growth, it encounters bottlenecks when challenged by new business models from external competitors.

Unlike internal pressures within the Alibaba system, if Alipay cannot find a suitable outlet for external competitive pressures, its development will face far greater challenges.

Moreover, the rise of AI-driven technologies and their associated business models poses increasing difficulties for Alipay's internet technology-based model.

From DeepSeek's popularity and its resulting traffic pattern reshaping, it's evident that AI-dominated technologies are reshaping the traffic landscape.

If Alipay views AI merely as a traffic maintenance tool rather than a competitive breakthrough, it may face greater challenges as AI-driven "Mobile Payment's DeepSeek" emerges.

The UEFA Euro 2020 function "ZhiXiaobao" launched by Alipay exemplifies this.

Conclusion

Describing Alipay's current development status as "caught in a dilemma" is no exaggeration.

Alipay's passive state stems from its traffic-driven model facing internal and external pressures.

Whether it's Alibaba's slowing growth in the stock era, pressure from external players like JD.com and Meituan, or the traffic redistribution brought by AI technologies, Alipay stands at the forefront of these trends.

To cope with internal and external pressures, Alipay has resorted to various strategies.

From expanding its platform to initiating new subsidy wars and adding diverse functions, Alipay's anxiety is palpable.

As these strategies falter, especially when Alipay's market position is challenged, its standing in the mobile payment market becomes precarious.

Alipay has since fallen from its pedestal, losing its former magic.